The Future of Investing & You
We’re sifting through the survey results from our 2025 Annual Survey (over 7,000 unique data points!), and one thing is clear.
You guys want to get better at investing vs. other personal finance areas.
Here’s a snapshot of what this looks like:
Results from our 2025 Annual Reader’s Survey
Furthermore, investing itself is changing before our eyes.
- College football sports teams are being shopped around to investors.
- The NFL ran out of rich people to buy the teams and is now open for business in private equity.
- Want to own Peanut Farms in Central California? There’s an app for that.
- Want to own fine art? There’s an app for that.
- Triple-leveraged ETFs on basically everything? Why not.
You can own virtually anything you want these days, almost exclusively from the convenience of an iPhone.
And that is not an accident.
Wall Street has been working hard to “democratize” investing, and it’s working.
Enter the room, alternative investments.
What are Alternative Investments?
In the coming years, you will see the term “alternative investments” more and more in your financial life.
To understand an “alternative investment,” we first need to understand what would be considered a “normal investment” to the people who define these things.
A stock, bond, or cash would be considered a “normal investment.”
A collection of these assets would be a “normal portfolio.”
Millions upon millions of Americans became millionaires off these “normal portfolios.”
If you and I were to review your Net Worth, I’d assume most of your assets were in these “normal” asset classes, plus equity in your home.
Pretty straightforward: stocks, bonds, and cash.
So then, what’s an alternative asset?
Something that one can invest in that is not a stock, bond, or cash.
Example:
- A car dealership
- A private debt deal
- Crypto
- Leverage buyout fund
- Investing in your nephew’s new company
- Art / Watches / Classic Cars
As you can see, these are not the tried and true blue chip stocks or muni bonds.
These alternative asset classes combined with tried and true stocks and bonds is the future of investing.
The Last Frontier
I wrote a piece on the players at hand when you are investing a few months back.
Read that after you finish this for more context of what I am saying.
It’s critical to understand the macro investing landscape to understand where to generate returns with your money, what’s safe to invest in, and who are the people behind said opportunities.
Obvious, but remember that.
Back to alternative investment.
There are pools of money that are relatively untapped from an alternative manager’s perspective because they are already invested in “normal assets.”
Think your 401k, IRA, HSA, Brokerage Account.
There is a huge opportunity for both you and asset managers, and tremendous pressure to get you or your financial advisor to invest in these “alternative assets.”
This pressure is both good and bad.
Here’s why this is happening.
Over the past twenty years, two companies, Blackrock and Vanguard, have made investing in the equity markets, fixed income, and cash management practically free for everyone.
Practically free means they’ve won the game and now find themselves in a strange spot.
They need to figure out where to go from here.
I’ll give you a hint of what they are doing: Blackrock just spent $12b to buy an alternative manager.
They need more clients’ fees to continue their growth ambitions and remain a viable, profitable businesses.
Simultaneously, the markets have changed and become more sophisticated, and capital formation is different from 10 years ago.
- Companies don’t have to go public anymore.
- College kids can create crypto projects on the weekend.
- Companies can raise money without going to the public debt market.
There are more options for companies and capital providers (investors/bankers), which is good.
Sort of.
More Choice = More Freedom (is this actually good?)
Having a bunch of options for something isn’t always practical or helpful.
Imagine you were at a baseball game and ordered a hot dog and beer.
You grab your stuff and head to the condiment station, only to find 50 different options for ketchup and one option for mustard.
You stop, stare, and ask yourself, “What is this? Why are there so many different Ketchups?”
You take a minute or two to pick one and head back to your seats, weirded out by the experience of having to choose from 50 different kinds of ketchup while not with the mustard.
You had more choices than ever, but having that many options was just… too much.
This is what it’s like to invest today.
- Do you open this account or that account and what should you buy?
- Do you do that real estate investment fund or that stock?
- Do you buy the big company or the little company?
- ETF vs Stocks vs Funds vs SMAs vs Bond Ladders vs CDs vs Alternatives?
The future of investing is choice.
There are two ways to look at this, more choice to:
- Get it right (make more money)
- Get it wrong (lose money)
Here’s some advice to consistently land in spot number #1.
The End Game
This can, already has, and will go south for individual investors.
It always does because people won’t know what they are buying and, as a result, lose money and time.
Don’t think I am preaching down to you here. I got burned in the 2022 Crypto meltdown like many other financial professionals and lost money when FTX when down, which then brought BlockFi down.
I was a crypto newbie and didn’t know what I was buying.
Still pissed about this but learned my lesson.
Here’s how this will work out:
You’ll be presented with an opportunity to invest in something new.
The investment itself won’t be new. It will be new to you.
It will look sexy, sound good, and come from someone who looks and probably is successful, and you will have to make a judgment call on whether to invest.
As you get more opportunities, you will have to make more judgment calls.
And that is/will be the hard part.
Knowing whether this is the deal of a lifetime or if you just lit your hard-earned money on fire.
This is where the financial markets are moving: more choice in the form of alternative investments.
I don’t want this to come off as me having a side here.
Stocks, bonds, and alternatives, put together, can make amazing portfolios.
Our team at Fjell is pumped about this future because it gives our clients more options to craft better portfolios using our experience and connections.
So, don’t get me wrong, I am all for the future of investing.
But more choice will make it harder to know what’s good, and I don’t want you to lose money learning what to do or not to do.
With that, I want to give you five simple questions to ask yourself before buying an investment outside of your core strategy.
- Why is this better than what I currently own?
- How could this investment go south?
- Does this fit with my financial goals?
- Do I understand the incentive structures?
- How do I get my money out?
These are the questions I always ask myself before I invest.
The future of investing is more choice, for better or worse.
Before you go: Here are 3 ways I can help you Invest for the Future
Bergen—If you have $500,000+ in investable assets and need tailored asset management strategies, tax, estate, and wealth planning solutions + white-glove service, Bergen is for you. Work directly with our team and me at Fjell and do more of what you love. Complete Wealth Management for modern families.
Portfolio Review—If this edition makes you equally excited and nervous, that’s good. The best next step is to look at your current investment strategy and what opportunities—stocks, bonds, or alternatives—could take your portfolio to the next level. That’s what Portfolio Reviews are for. They’re free and take 30 minutes. You’ll learn a ton.
BluePrint— If you aren’t the “work with a financial advisor type” or not ready for full-service wealth management, but still want an expert to help craft your strategy, meet BluePrint. In just 30 days, organize, strategize, and take action across your complete financial life. Your time is now.
