In the Investment Checkup, Alternatives are intended to represent highly liquid assets outside of stocks, bonds and cash. This includes things like Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) and commodity exposure available through ETFs such as gold or oil. Alternatives here are not intended to represent things like private equity funds, hedge funds, long/short funds, or venture capital funds, which are often referred to as alternatives in the industry, but which are not available to most individual investors and may not be liquid.
