When thinking about investing most people think stocks, and then just stop thinking.

There is an almost never ending number of asset classes out there, ready to be carved into what ever pieces you might need.

Those of you who actually made it this far into this site will probably have heard of stocks and bonds, but there is more, much - much more.

Some of these can be quite useful as diversifier, others are merely a little strange, and some of them could be considered downright dangerous.

And just to make live even more interesting most of these classes can be split up even further by simply adding regions or countries or other additional indicators to the name, thus for example creating the asset class of the “European small cap value stocks”.

(The asset classes of the “red collared precious stones and gems” on the other hand can safely be put into the category of the marketing scams.)

Whether you really need al those classes is quite another question. (Above all as the more exotic asset classes tend to carry big costs, and you know what we think of costs...:-(