Introduction to my alternative investments portfolio

I would like to give you an overview of my alternative investments. As you can see from the table below I started 2007 with my first alternative investment. There is quite a diversity of investments and lock-in periods.

Type of investment	Description	Year purchased	Lock-in time
Forest	Growing and owning trees at a teak plantation in Panama	2007	20 years
Property	Apartment to live in and refurbish	2007	None
Automated / robot forex trading	Automated grid-trading forex product	2008	None
Property	Apartment to live in and refurbish	2010	None
Forest	Investment in Baltic forest	2010	5 years
Land development	Land development in Russia	2010	3 years
Carbon credit investments		2012	1 year
Forest	Teak Brazil	2012	Min 3 years
Automated / robot stock trading	Automated stock trading product	2012	None
Forestry	Eucalyptus investment, Brazil	2012	6-7 years

I will elaborate on the "return on investment" status and give general reflections for each one of the investments above in upcoming posting. So stay tuned and subscribe to my blog, don’t miss out these interesting stories!

I also own stocks and funds, and I see alternative investments as a great complement (especially now, considering the unstable financial market climate that has dominated for a long time). Daily Finance noted in an article roughly two years ago: “If you invested $1,000 in the S&P 500 10 years ago, you would have only $850 today. And that's in nominal dollars, not factoring in inflation. Ouch.” (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/29/top-10-stocks-of-the-last-10-years). Some alternative investments have had a really good journey during the same time. For example, gold has made a 400% increase during the same period…