For all the talk last year about interest rate normalization, little changed with respect to the Fed’s stance on monetary policy. That may change in the coming year as the United States and economies in Europe show signs of further growth and recovery, but in 2014, volatile growth and a low interest rate environment gave investors pause as to where they should look for solid returns.

More than the traditional fixed-income and equity markets, investors looked at alternative assets and specifically real assets to augment their portfolios. At the institutional level, nearly half of the institutions surveyed in a BlackRock report, The Ascent of Real Assets, said they have increased their allocations in at least one category of real assets in the last three years. Over the next year and a half or so, about 60 percent will increase in at least one category (breaking that out, 49 percent of infrastructure investors, 48 percent of real estate investors and 46 percent of co