5 things to know about alternate investment classes

Alternative asset classes include commodities such as precious metals (gold, silver), crude oil, etc., real estate, wine, collectibles, foreign currency, venture capital, private equity and distressed securities.

They are not publicly traded as traditional asset classes and typically owned by institutions. For example, commodities have a commodity market on which they are traded.

These asset classes can be illiquid in nature and their valuation can be difficult due to the absence of a market price.

For these asset classes, there exist time periods during which exiting them is either not possible or heavily penalised. They also come with higher minimum investment thresholds.