It is time for some proper alternatives

The markets are in a funny mood. I recently hosted an event with the Tim Bond of Odey Asset Management. Tim was rather bullish on equities with some unprintable negative observations on bonds and gold, but the audience did not seem terrifically convinced by his optimism.

To sum up, nothing seems to particularly excite anyone anymore, and although Bond might be right the rest of the world is only in the first stages of a vibrant recovery, most investors keep harping on about boring old things like the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio looking toppy or emerging markets stocks looking too faddish. What seems to be making matters much worse is the classic alternatives to the bad boys of global finance (equities and bonds) also look far from good value at this juncture. Whatever one currently thinks about bonds, I am not sure you could call them gre...