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What are alternative investments?

Alternative investments are non-traditional investment opportunities such as commodities, real estate funds, and hedge funds. Alternative investments are usually difficult for private investors to access as they have required high minimum investment amounts and a long investment period in the past. With volt, you can easily add various alternative investments to your portfolio with no minimum investment period—all in just a few clicks.

What is the advantage of “alternatives”?

Alternative investments often perform independently of global markets. That’s why many professional investment strategies use them to spread risk and increase yield opportunities.

Less risk

Alternative investments can maintain or even increase their value when markets fall. One example is gold, which usually moves counter-cyclically. Alternative investments are thus often used for risk diversification.

Additional return potential

When properly managed, alternative investments can limit losses and, in some cases, generate above-average returns when markets rise and fall. Hedge funds have shown this time repeatedly.

Optimized portfolio

Alternative investments give our investment experts additional opportunities for continually adjusting your portfolio to market conditions and optimizing your investments.

volt’s various alternative investments

With gold, real estate, hedge funds, crypto and commodities, you have various alternative investments available to help you get more out of your portfolio.

Gold

The precious metal has always been regarded as a crisis currency, a “safe haven” in uncertain times, for example in the event of inflation. It is not uncommon for investors to shift some of their money from equities or currencies into gold when markets come under pressure. As a result, gold often rises when other assets fall.

Real estate

With a real estate investment, you benefit from rising real estate prices without having to own a house or apartment. Real estate can serve both to optimize yield and to minimize risk. Interest in real estate often increases when a country’s currency loses purchasing power or when banks offer low interest rates on loans.

Investing in alternative investments with the volt app: Hedgefonds

Hedge funds

This mixed investment may consists of equities, bonds, commodities, foreign exchange, derivatives, bank loans, corporate investments, food, and more. Hedge funds are actively managed with the aim of generating profits in any stock market situation, including bets on falling prices or falling currencies. This creates yield opportunities that regular equities usually cannot offer.

Crypto

This investment consists of half Bitcoin and half Ethereum. Originally, the crypto sector was associated mostly with digital currencies. Today, most crypto networks aim to serve as a platform for applications that benefit from the decentralized principle of the blockchain.

Commodities

Commodities include metals, wood, oil, grains, wheat, sugar, rare earths, coal, and more. Commodities investments are also less driven by global markets and therefore often serve to spread risk, thus diversifying portfolios. Among other things, commodities are used in professional investment strategies to protect against inflation.

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Add “alternatives” in just three steps

Adding various alternative investments to your portfolio is as easy as this:

Go to your portfolio on the home screen
Scroll down and click on "Add Alternative Investments"
Add an alternative investment

The investment is now part of your actively managed portfolio.

Screenshot of the volt app, where alternative investments can be done.

FAQs

How is my money invested in alternative investments?

How often can I buy or sell my alternative investments?

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Our team of experts based in Zurich will be happy to take care of your request personally. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

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Alternative investments for a professional portfolio

What is the advantage of “alternatives”?

volt’s various alternative investments

Add “alternatives” in just three steps

FAQs