Vanguard and Blackstone disclose joint 'initiative' to bring alts to mass investors after private 'talks' leak months ahead of planned news release

"Liquid Alts", the next personal finance meme...behind "robo-advisors", "ESG investing", "Tax Loss Harvesting", "SMAs", and perhaps ahead of "direct indexing". There's endless models for extracting excess fees in the personal finance space.

I strongly disagree with that comment above from Mr. Murphy - Firms like those mentioned and many others have attempted (many times very successfully) to develop and implement both retail and institutional investment solutions to create better outcomes and attain specific client goals through numerous and different structures (some mentioned above) by diversifying their risk, creating effective and meaningful tax overlays, adding operational alpha, and potentially increasing returns thru innovative means while simultaneously and meaningfully reducing costs etc.

I'm not arguing that there is no value in these "technologies", but that the industry is so thirsty for anything that they can pitch (and charge for), often mediocre ideas get hyped into the stratosphere. For example, with liquid alts - I've been managing client assets for over 20 years now and never once has a client requested access to "private credit"...not once. These are products that come with a lot of bluster, and then are sold (not bought) - perceived as the thing everyone needs to boost performance. Unfortunately, it's just not true.