5 Alternative Investments for Millennials - Endorsing Impactfully Innovative Assets

While Millennials and Gen Z follow similar investment patterns for traditional assets, when it comes to alternative or supplemental fiscal strategies that go beyond cash, stocks, and bonds, the former is much more adventurous. For instance, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and mutual funds, which allow investors to pool their money together and purchase a basket of securities, are a classic fail-safe to diversify their portfolio at a low risk. ETFs, unlike mutual funds, are traded throughout the day like stocks and can be used to tap into various asset classes and industries, as well as benefit from trending niche sectors, and are ideal for investors looking to reallocate assets and offset losses during the post-Covid recovery stage.

Whether it’s a sophisticated multi-purpose commercial real estate property hosting high-end experiences and creating a collaborative platform for burgeoning talents or tech-infused serviced apartments decked with minimalist luxury, these holistic multi-value investments provide high rental yields, numerous tax benefits, guaranteed value appreciation, and an effective hedge against inflation and recession. These highly saleable, meaningful hard assets also require zero effort on the enterpriser’s part towards management and maintenance, as an onsite management committee and round-the-clock maintenance team will be on hand to attend to your tenants’ every whim. If you’re looking for avant-garde property developers in Sri Lanka proffering access to the foremost commercial and residential real estate in Sri Lanka, venture no further than the likes of John Keells Properties.

Millennials, who range from 19-year-old college students to well-established individuals in their late thirties, are known for their talent and agility in maintaining lucrative side hustles, whether it’s trading in luxury vintage watches, launching an entertainingly useful blog, turning an unused property into an Airbnb, or reselling celebrity sneakers in mint condition. However, for a digitally empowered twist to their usual asset class, Non-Fungible Tokens are trendy cryptographic ‘tokens’ that represent either a real-life tangible asset such as a photograph, artwork, or collectible, or an intangible product such as a virtual game, video, domain name, or event only viewed or listened to on digital platforms. NFTs are relatively secure as their entire transaction history is preserved on a blockchain, and they also allow the investor exclusive ownership of the digital version of high-demand assets, the right to exhibit it, and a portion of the artist’s proceeds from any ensuing resale.

Gravitating towards finance and technology and hyper-focused on value, growth, and dividend stocks, the younger generation of investors is constantly seeking out excitingly meaningful avenues to add vibrancy to their portfolio of assets. Equity crowdfunding entitles investors to a stake in a company that is proportionate to their investment, and even though start-ups can be categorised as risky enterprises, there is every possibility of highly lucrative returns as long as venture capitalists conduct a thorough assessment and consider factors like the company’s objectives, strategy, impact vs. activity metrics, as well as venture validation and valuation.

Millennial and Gen Z investors want to know the ins and outs of the companies or initiatives they buy into, not only in terms of historical performance, the potential for long-term gains, and specialised knowledge of the industry, but also about long-term sustainability and ethical decision-making based on creating a widespread positive impact. ESG-friendly companies, whether they actively stand up for social justice issues, provide solutions to cut back on carbon emissions, or engineer water conservation infrastructure, are likely to qualify as high-yielding investments as they combine sustainable and equitable business practices with innovation-driven expertise to exceed profitability and ROI goals.