This Year's Asset Class Winners, Losers: Searching for Alpha for January 2016

As we enter a new era of higher rates, asset classes will have to stand on their merits instead of skating by on the artificially low rate regime that has been a staple of the macroeconomic environment for the last seven years.

As a result, we could be entering a (more rational) period where top-line revenue growth and profits will serve as fundamental drivers of asset class returns.

The table below is offered as a conversation starter as advisors start to build portfolios for 2016.   Investors with little conviction about the state of the U.S. economy should consider owning assets from both groups.