Assets are the lifeblood of the economy. They enable us to store, transfer, and create wealth. Historically, investors have put most of their wealth into traditional financial assets such as stocks, bonds and cash.
I have never been a fan of this approach because:
(1) Stocks are generally risky and efficiently priced.
(2) Bonds provide mediocre returns.
(3) Cash does not protect against inflation.
With these drawbacks in mind, it's rather surprising to learn that still in year 2000 – about 95% of portfolios were allocated to traditional financial assets. It's only over the past