● Understanding Alternative Investments: Creating Diversified Portfolios that Ride the Wave of Investment Success
By Stephen Todd Walker
Summary via publisher, Palgrave Macmillan
Using ground-breaking, never before seen data on alternative investments, Stephen Todd Walker explores how to apply new risk measurements to an alternative portfolio. Through his 20+ years of expertise in finance, the author explains how to go about carefully selecting the best alternatives for you and the right time to invest in them, including real estate, hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, and more. The book shows the merits of owning alternative investments and helps investors who want to create better, more diversified portfolios.
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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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Payrolls increased in June by substantially more than projected, the Labor Department reports. The economy added 262,000 private non-farm jobs last month vs. May, well above Econoday.com’s consensus forecast of 210,000 (or the Capital Spectator’s 235,000 median prediction). Good news, of course, but not quite a clear and unambiguous sign that the labor market’s growth is accelerating beyond the pace we’ve seen before the economy hit a speed bump earlier this year.
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Private nonfarm payrolls in the US are projected to increase 235,000 (seasonally adjusted) in tomorrow’s June update from the Labor Department, according to The Capital Spectator’s median econometric point forecast. The expected monthly rise is moderately higher than the previously reported increase of 216,000 for May.
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Private nonfarm payrolls increased 281,000 in June over the previous month, according to this morning’s ADP Employment Report—substantially more than expected and the biggest monthly gain since November 2012. The consensus forecast was looking for +213,000, according to Econoday.com. Today’s release certainly looks encouraging for thinking that tomorrow’s official payrolls report from the Labor Department will also deliver upbeat news. Yet it’s still premature to argue that momentum for jobs has shifted into a higher gear.
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Private nonfarm payrolls in the US are projected to increase 180,000 (seasonally adjusted) in June over the previous month in tomorrow’s release of the ADP Employment Report, based on The Capital Spectator’s median econometric point forecast. The expected gain is incrementally higher than the previously reported increase for May.
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June was another strong month for returns across the board. Red ink was banished among the major asset classes for the third time this year on a monthly calendar basis. The big winner last month: emerging market stocks, which climbed 2.7% on a total return basis in June–the fifth straight monthly gain for this slice of equities. Ignoring the perennially flat performance of cash (3-month T-bills), last month’s “loser”: US investment-grade bonds in broad terms via the Barclays Aggregate Index, which advanced a mere 0.05% in June.
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