Talk:Asset classes

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Cleanup required

I feel that this article could benefit from a significant number of verbiage changes to lessen the reliance on the "we can..." sort of phrasing. It's definitely not in line with the rest of Wikipedia or the Manual of Style. Sean "esqew" Quinn (talk) 02:13, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed some of the second/first person... still a bit rough LinuxNCats (talk) 05:26, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cryptocurrencies

Can we add Cryptocurrencies as a new asset class?

They do not meet the definition of "asset class" established in the first line of the article: "In finance, an asset class is a group of financial instruments which have similar financial characteristics and behave similarly in the marketplace."

To take one obvious example, during the last one-year period 5/21/2020 to 5/21/2021, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has ranged from $9,141 to $63,316, i.e. a 500% difference low to high, while the price of Tether (USDT) has ranged from $0.9975 to $1.003,less than 1% difference. Coindesk cites a "30-day volatility" of 0.83 for Bitcoin, 0.01 for Tether. Those are not "similar," any more than stocks and U.S. savings bonds are "similar."

Cryptocurrencies are being created and invented all the time, with different purposes and intentionally different financial characteristics. Certainly they are assets, but they are not "an asset class."

No source was cited in the article to support its inclusion as an "asset class." Indeed, no source was cited for any of the others except "infrastructure." However, it would be easy to support the others--for just one example, by reference to the Callan "periodic table of investment returns" .

Dpbsmith (talk)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - SU24 - Sect 200 - Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 May 2024 and 24 August 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mt5332 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Zq2197 (talk) 04:30, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 2026 rewrite for GA quality

I have made a comprehensive rewrite of this article that aims to address most of the open concerns in the threads above.

Summary of changes:

• ENGVAR: added {{Use American English}} and {{Use mdy dates}}. No strong WP:TIES; American English chosen because the most heavily cited sources (SEC, FINRA, CFA Institute) are U.S.-based and the existing article already used American spelling.
• Lead: three paragraphs covering definition, the traditional/alternative split, the lack of a universal classification system, and the modern recognition that asset classes are imperfect proxies for systematic risk factors. Cited inline to SEC, CFA Institute, FINRA and the Longin–Solnik (2001) study on correlation behaviour during stress.
• New sections:
  • Definition: distinguishing asset classes from vehicles, sub-classes and strategies, and citing CFA Institute's criteria for specifying an asset class.
  • Historical development: Markowitz (1952), Sharpe (1964), Brinson–Hood–Beebower (1986) and Ibbotson–Kaplan (2000), plus OECD pension-allocation data and the Doeswijk–Lam–Swinkels (2014) global multi-asset market portfolio study.
  • Classification approaches: traditional vs alternative; financial vs real; public vs private; asset classes vs risk factors.
  • Major asset classes: cash and money-market instruments, fixed income, public equity, real estate, commodities and natural resources, infrastructure, private capital, hedge funds, currencies, cryptoassets, and derivatives and structured products.
  • Portfolio role: asset allocation, diversification, rebalancing, and benchmarks and indexes (with GIPS guidance and CFA Institute on market indexes).
  • Characteristics used to compare asset classes: twelve dimensions (return, volatility, correlation, liquidity, income, inflation, rates, credit, currency, valuation, regulation, cost).
  • Limitations and criticism: the same point raised in the "Canonical?" thread above (no authoritative list), that asset classes can obscure shared risk factors, and that product marketing can shape class definitions.
• Open threads addressed:
  • "Cleanup required" (October 2020): the rewrite uses no first- or second-person voice and follows MOS:WORDS for plain encyclopedic prose.
  • "Canonical?" (January 2016): the new "Classification approaches" and "Limitations and criticism" sections explicitly state that there is no universal classification and explain why categories such as commodities, risk-free assets and money markets are treated differently across frameworks.
  • "Cryptocurrencies" (May 2021): cryptoassets are now covered as a separate, cautiously-worded subsection, with the FSB's financial-stability assessment as the main cite, and the subsection notes that their classification is disputed.
  • "Other 'asset classes' (e.g., collectables)" (January 2023): the rewrite does not add a separate "collectables" section because mainstream investment-management sources (SEC, FINRA, CFA Institute, CAIA) do not treat collectables as a top-level asset class; the "Limitations and criticism" section discusses how product marketing can shape class definitions.
• Footer: added {{Investment management}} navbox (collapsed) and {{Authority control}}. Moved {{Financial markets}} sidebar to the top of the article; it is a {{Sidebar}}-based template and was rendering incorrectly at the bottom.
• Sources: 27 unique references, all CS1-clean. Source mix is SEC (8), FINRA, CFA Institute (5 readings), CAIA, OECD, FSB, and peer-reviewed academic journals (Markowitz, Sharpe, Brinson et al., Ibbotson–Kaplan, Longin–Solnik, Doeswijk et al.). All academic citations include DOIs.

This is a non-controversial expansion (no factual claims are removed); the only deletion is the unsupported plain-text claims that the previous version had attached to no source. Sparks19923 (talk) 15:33, 13 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]