Asset classes

• Classic bank investments (FIAT)
• Securities (e.g. shares, bonds, mortgage bonds, funds, ETFs, certificates)
• Real estate (Direct Investment, Crowd Investing)
• Alternative Investment (Proportionally real assets, private equity, commodities, precious metals, rare earths, hedge funds, managed futures/CTAs, etc.).

CRITERIA OF AN ASSET CLASS ACCORDING TO WILLIAM F. SHARPE

• The different asset classes must be mutually exclusive, meaning that a given investment product can only be assigned to one asset class at a time.
• An asset class must be comprehensive so that diversification, i.e. investing in different products, is possible within the asset class.
• The returns of individual asset classes may not be related, so that the return of one asset class may rise while the other falls.

Alternative Investments

The term alternative investments refers to traditional investments in non-investment products (stocks, bonds, fixed-income securities, mutual funds and other listed securities). They are therefore not an asset class per se, but an umbrella term for innovative products that differ from traditional investment products. They differ from other asset classes in their return and risk profile. They offer above-average return potential; in return, performance and risk measurement are complex. Often, the products are not tradable or only tradable to a limited extent. This means that an investor cannot always react easily to changing conditions.

Wood Investment

With a timber investment or forest investment, you either buy a forest plot directly or become a tenant of one. Alternatively, you participate indirectly in timber sales via funds, timber certificates or shares. Since trees in Central Europe, such as spruces and pines, are only felled after about 80 years, they are not suitable for investing money. The respective plantations of the providers for direct investments and funds are therefore located in Central and South America as well as in Southeast Asia, for example in Panama, Costa Rica, Paraguay or in Vietnam. Due to the climatic conditions the trees reach there in shorter time a size, which permits a further processing. Providers offering timber investments have chosen teak as a tree species, for example. Teak trees are pest-resistant, are felled after only about 20 years and the sale of the precious wood promises high profits.

Crowd Investing

In crowdinvesting or equity-based crowdfunding, many private investors join forces via an Internet platform to jointly raise capital for a specific project. Startups, projects in the field of renewable energies, films or real estate are financed. The investment already works with small amounts and thus also enables small investors to invest in large real estate projects. This is because the funding threshold for the projects is reached by the large number of micro-investors - the "crowd". As with open-end funds, risk diversification is possible due to the low minimum investment: the investor does not have to put all his eggs in one basket as with an individual property...

GOLD Investment

In times of political instability and unrest, and in view of sometimes strong and difficult-to-predict fluctuations on the global financial markets, the question is repeatedly raised as to whether and to what extent gold makes sense as a financial investment. Gold is the only non-substitutable commodity. Moreover, physical gold, especially in the form of coins, is transportable and suitable as a means of payment in an emergency. In addition to the function of physical gold as a store of value, inflation protection and, in the worst case, even as a crisis currency, there are diverse, further possibilities to invest "in gold" in the broadest sense - among other things also for speculation purposes.

FOREX

Forex (also known as FX) is short for Foreign Exchange and refers to the process of converting one currency into another. The Forex market is often referred to as FX, foreign exchange, or simply the currency market. The Forex market is the world's largest financial market and one with the highest liquidity, with a daily trading volume of several trillion US dollars in currencies. The vast majority of activity in the foreign exchange market comes from traders trying to make a profit by speculating on the market price - this is called Forex trading. Since there is no central Forex exchange, trading is done directly between the buyer and the seller, thus all trades take place "Over the Counter" (OTC). Forex can be traded 24 hours a day and there are few restrictions on trading.