Quick service restaurants, or QSRs, are everywhere, and Fred Hubler makes the case that shifting business models create a real investment opportunity. He cites Toasttab data showing 37% of US adults eat fast food every day, with the market growing to over $362 billion in 2022 per IBIS World, and Chipotle alone seeing digital sales jump more than 216%, fueled …

The traditional 60/40 portfolio, 60% stocks and 40% bonds, has long been the standard advisor recommendation, but Fred Hubler points out it hasn’t kept pace with how major endowments invest. Over the last 30 years, a 60/40 portfolio returned an average of 8.2% in the US, while Yale’s endowment model earned 13.1% over that same period. He explains why: large …

Self-storage might not sound glamorous, but it’s the only asset class with an average occupancy of 92% and one that outperformed other asset classes in 2021, according to Fred Hubler. He notes it can offer passive income, inflation protection (since rates can adjust daily), and less tenant stress than other property types. Once associated mainly with hoarders, self-storage is now …

Real estate development is one alternative investment corner that often gets overlooked, and Fred Hubler makes the case for adding a small allocation to a portfolio otherwise built on already-completed properties via DSTs and REITs. He notes that real estate development funds can hedge against inflation and rising interest rates, citing the current prime rate of 8.5%. He describes development …

Digital infrastructure surrounds us every day, though most people never think about it, and Fred Hubler frames it as a fast-growing alternative investment asset class. As technology accelerates, he explains, physical infrastructure has to keep pace, echoing the same accumulation trend he covered in an earlier piece on self-storage, except here what’s piling up is data rather than physical belongings. …

With recession talk building for 2024, geopolitical tension, and interest rate hikes weighing on investors, Fred Hubler looks at how the biggest players are responding: institutional investors, who collectively manage around $20 trillion in assets. He notes that the old playbook of leaning on bonds during a stock market slump proved unreliable in 2022, since traditional, liquid investments can still …

Tax benefits and direct investment access are two of oil and gas’s main draws for accredited investors, and Fred Hubler traces the opportunity back to a 1942 government push to boost domestic energy production, which still creates tax-saving opportunities today. Most of these programs start as a temporary general partnership obligation and automatically convert to a limited partnership once qualifications …

Private equity has long been a staple allocation for endowments, foundations, and high-net-worth families, and Fred Hubler leans on an unlikely reference to explain it: Richard Gere’s character in Pretty Woman, who ran a private equity firm that bought companies and either combined them or broke them apart. In plainer terms, he describes private equity as ownership or interest in …

A 1031 exchange lets real estate investors defer capital gains by swapping one property for another, and for over sixteen years, owners have also had the option to move into a passive DST structure. But Fred Hubler points to a different tool for investors who want beneficiaries to be free to go their own separate ways with an inherited asset: …

Recession chatter has been building in 2024, and Fred Hubler notes that Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has called a recession the likely outcome of the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes meant to curb inflation, joining a growing number of economists expecting an economic downturn. Since a recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, Hubler …