Best Alternative Investment ETFs for Non-Traditional Assets
Alternative investments — often called “alts” — refer to anything outside the traditional buckets of stocks, bonds, and cash. Think hedge funds, commodities, real estate, managed futures, and merger arbitrage. These strategies were historically reserved for institutional and wealthy investors due to high minimums, complex fee structures, and limited liquidity. Alternative investment ETFs have changed that, packaging these non-traditional asset classes into exchange-traded funds with no upfront minimums and a fraction of the fees.
The alternative ETF space spans several distinct strategy types:
- Commodities: Funds like GLD (gold), USO (oil), and PDBC (broad multi-commodity) provide exposure to metals, energy, and agriculture without physical ownership.
- Managed futures: The largest alternatives category — funds like DBMF and CTA take long and short positions across equity, fixed-income, currency, and commodity futures to profit from price trends.
- Merger arbitrage: ETFs such as MNA and ARB capture returns from announced M&A deals while hedging broad market risk, targeting low-volatility, market-neutral returns.
- Hedge fund replication: Funds like QAI, HFND, and HDG aim to replicate hedge fund returns across styles including long/short equity, global macro, and event-driven strategies.
- Real estate: REIT ETFs like VNQ hold commercial and residential real estate securities, which have historically shown low correlation with the S&P 500 — roughly on par with gold at approximately 0.6.
- Multi-asset real return: Products like RLY combine commodities, TIPS, and real estate in a single fund designed to keep pace with inflation.
Long/short equity ETFs such as FTLS round out the space, taking both long and short equity positions to generate returns across varying market conditions. Some commodity-focused alternative ETFs also avoid K-1 tax forms, which simplifies filing for individual holders.
For broader context, you can also explore our real estate ETF list and our overview of ETFs by sector and industry.
Regulated brokerThe table below lists alternative investment ETFs across all major strategy types, with live pricing and performance data.
| Stock | Price | Change % | 52 Week Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| $69.38 | 0.24% | ||
| $29.81 | 1.42% | ||
| $30.37 | 0.13% | ||
| $33.85 | 1.08% | ||
| $35.20 | 1.48% | ||
| $27.97 | 0.47% | ||
| $26.87 | 0.41% | ||
| $28.13 | 1.80% | ||
| $14.15 | 1.51% | ||
| $28.02 | 1.58% | ||
| $36.08 | 0.02% | ||
| $48.65 | 8.52% | ||
| $38.98 | 1.29% | ||
| $17.39 | 0.35% | ||
| $49.85 | 0.07% | ||
| $13.57 | 1.67% | ||
| $40.39 | 3.28% | ||
| $18.61 | 1.31% | ||
| $27.03 | 0.28% | ||
| $29.28 | 0.10% | ||
| $37.73 | 1.90% | ||
| $15.84 | 3.37% | ||
| $24.40 | 2.41% | ||
| $34.53 | 0.19% | ||
| $28.88 | 2.24% | ||
| $22.04 | 1.83% | ||
| $28.58 | 0.02% | ||
| $24.34 | 0.16% | ||
| $22.85 | 1.60% | ||
| $25.94 | 0.97% | ||
| $29.25 | 1.74% | ||
| $30.41 | 2.86% | ||
| $35.79 | 1.49% | ||
| $20.66 | 0.15% | ||
| $51.32 | 0.92% | ||
| $32.09 | 0.19% | ||
 Formidable ETF FORH | $23.99 | 1.47% | |
| $8.28 | 2.13% | ||
| $31.64 | 0.45% | ||
| $21.03 | 0.64% | ||
| $25.21 | 1.16% | ||
| $20.58 | 0.85% | ||
| $35.61 | 2.70% | ||
| $32.20 | 4.22% | ||
| $44.88 | 0.01% | ||
| $28.16 | 0.54% | ||
| $52.22 | 1.77% | ||
| $22.33 | 0.04% | ||
| $11.61 | 0.43% | ||
| $31.48 | 2.54% | ||
| $23.85 | 2.45% | ||
| $17.32 | 0.63% | ||
| $25.71 | 0.38% |
