While almost everyone is familiar with common investments like stocks, bonds and real estate, there are also a huge number of less common investment vehicles that can help you make the most of your money.
These so-called nontraditional investments allow investors to diversify their portfolios and earn higher overall returns on their capital. Here are four of the nontraditional investments you need to know about if you’re thinking about broadening your portfolio.
Peer-to-peer Lending
Over the last few years, peer-to-peer lending has emerged as one of the most important classes of nontraditional investments. In peer-to-peer lending, sometimes abbreviated P2P, groups of individual lenders fund loans for borrowers.
These lenders then receive both their principal and interest as the borrowers repay the loans. Interest rates vary based on the borrower’s creditworthiness but returns of 10 percent or more are not uncommon.
Monetized Websites
Websites are among the most overlooked investment vehicles out there. Sites monetized with ads and affiliate links can generate considerable passive income for their owners, making them a useful inclusion in your wealth management planning for guaranteeing monthly cash flow.
Best of all, you can buy existing, well-established websites from their creators, meaning you won’t have to set up a site or create all of the content for it yourself. This investment does require a bit of work and maintenance, but it can be very lucrative under the right circumstances.
Cryptocurrency
Digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ether and Dash have become quite popular as investment assets over the last few years. While cryptocurrency investment is certainly speculative, it has produced excellent returns for many investors.
When it comes to trading cryptocurrency, it helps to have a bit of background knowledge in the more traditional foreign exchange market. Cryptocurrencies may also be a useful hedge against inflation in your portfolio.
Shipping Containers
Oddly enough, one of the investments that can make you a very high rate of return is the common shipping container. By buying shipping containers and then renting them out to shipping and logistics companies through a specialized broker, you can earn considerable rental fees on an asset that isn’t terribly expensive to begin with.
This form of nontraditional investment does require some fairly specialized knowledge, but it can also produce extremely stable and attractive returns over the long run.
These are just four of the hundreds of nontraditional investments you may want to consider adding to your portfolio. As you continue to learn more about investing, you’ll find many, many other ways to earn returns on your capital. Always be sure to carefully evaluate each investment to make sure it is a good fit for your strategy and risk tolerance level.