[smabie]

The alternative assets are less risky, because they have less market exposure, and when uncorrelated (or less correlated) return streams are mixed together, the volatility of the portfolio is reduced.

It's very common that a shitty investment with high volatility and low returns can actually improve the risk adjusted returns of a portfolio. Like gold, for example.

Also, hedge funds are significantly less risky than holding the S&P 500, since most funds have less than 100% net long exposure. And market neutral funds have 0% net long exposure.

[rmrfstar]

> The alternative assets are less risky, because they have less market exposure

If you're including PE in there, you are way off base. According to the assumptions in BlackRock's Aladin platform, global buyout has an equity beta of something like 1.6.

[smabie]

I mean, that's just one, old, moderate sized fund. I couldn't tell what PE's total beta exposure is, but I would unsurprised if the variance between different funds is very, very, large.

Moreover, beta doesn't capture the whole picture. By any chance do you know what the funds correlation to the broader equity market is?

[rmrfstar]

That is their assumption for global buyout as an asset class. You can grab their allocation assumptions at [1]. There is a "Download data" button on the page with the assumptions for a variety of base currencies.

You can also back out a ballpark beta from the MM theorems and what we know about company leverage post LBO. See [2] foot note 6.

[1] https://blackrock.com/institutions/en-us/insights/charts/cap...

[2] https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/White-Papers/Demystify...

[smabie]

Thanks, I thought you were talking about the global buyout fund. Will check it out. AQR and Blackrock do really great stuff

[wbl]

That's what the marketing department says. The actual returns paint a rather different picture.