It was not long ago that the U.S. economy was stuck in an inflationary rut. Throughout much of the recent economic recovery, inflation — as measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index — has risen less than 2 percent a year. Some years, it barely scratched the surface of 1 percent, despite the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary efforts to stimulate economic growth.

Art investing is big business. As this magazine has highlighted in the past, this emerging “real asset” is of increasing interest, not only to high-net-worth individuals but also to fund managers.

As renewables prices continue to drop, more companies are signing renewable-energy commitments, further motivating other companies to join the market as well, according to Kyle Harrison, a corporate energy procurement analyst at Bloomberg.

Back in 2012, Mesa West Capital was one of the country’s top five nonbank lenders. Five years later, it was acquired by Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Berkshire Capital Securities ushered the deal through to completion. “This is an example where an independent commercial real estate debt manager partnered with a larger institution to secure global clients,” observes Ted Gooden, a Berkshire Capital managing director. It also brought Morgan Stanley into the nonbank lending business.

Latin America is preparing for a new wave of infrastructure and energy activity, fueled by new public-private partnerships and rising political and economic stability. Those conditions have produced a timely inflow of foreign investment, with a reported 226 infrastructure-related transactions worth $61.8 billion in 2017.

After seven years in the accounting business at Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. and seven years on Wall Street at Shearson Lehman Bros., Rick Buoncore received a fortuitous phone call from Vince Farrell, a partner at a boutique investment firm, who asked a very direct question: “What do you want to do next?”

The hype of blockchain is real. The zealots view this infrastructure as a new Internet, enabling real-time, decentralized and trustless transfers of value. Banks be damned. Governments are moot. A brave new world is ahead.

Several indicators are suggesting the global mining sector is now turning around after the dark days of 2014–2015 and early 2016. To wit:

There was plenty of reason for excitement when the JOBS Act was passed in 2012, opening the door for investors previously considered “non-accredited” to participate in private placements. The legislation was aimed at providing more startup capital to new businesses and creating millions of jobs. Naturally, the fertile imaginations of product sponsors and financial advisers were buzzing with notions of a whole new class of Americans plowing money into investments of the alternative, hard asset and illiquid varieties.

The private wealth business is facing a persistent and decades-old personnel crisis. The number of financial advisers continues to dwindle as RIAs struggle to attract young talent to the business. U.S. financial advisers number roughly 285,000, down from about 500,000 in the mid-1990s. The average age of a financial adviser is 51, and 38 percent of advisers are expecting to retire in the next 10 years, according to a report from Cerulli Associates. Only 10 percent of financial advisers are less than 35 years of age.

Despite headwinds such as geopolitical uncertainty — driven, in large part, by escalating tensions over trade policies — equity real asset classes posted positive results and outperformed broader global equity markets, according to Brookfield’s second quarter 2018 real assets performance report. Real asset debt declined with the overall fixed-income market and outperformed more broad-based fixed-income indexes.