Wall Street Journal readers are more willing than financial advisers are to take on the risk of alternative assets and foreign stocks.
The more than 1,800 readers who have responded to a Journal questionnaire about asset allocation since August allocated just 8 percent of their investment portfolio to U.S. stocks, 16 percent to bonds and cash, 44 percent to alternatives and 32 percent to foreign stocks.
But the financial advisers whom The Journal has spoken to monthly since February 2012, recommended that investors suggest putting 33 percent of a portfolio’s holdings in U.S. stocks, 37 percent in bonds and cash, only 16 percent in alternatives and only 15 percent in foreign stocks.
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Steven Weinstein and Jason Laurie of Altair Advisers tied for the highest recommended weighting of alternatives and foreign stocks combined — 52 percent.
That still trails’ the readers’ 76 percent. But the duo sees a good reason for their decision. "If you look at what did well in 2012, good old-fashioned, long-only equities had a very nice year," Laurie tells The Journal.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index generated a total return of 16 percent last year.
To be sure, Journal readers already may be allocating more of their money to U.S. stocks amid their climb to five-year highs.
A record $77.4 billion flowed into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, according to TrimTabs.
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