Wall Street’s recent promotion of alternative investments should warrant serious concern among investors. It serves as an unpleasant example of history repeating itself. In the mid-1980s, Wall Street firms became enamored with limited partnerships (a form of alternative investment) that invested in so-called hard assets, paid the firms high commissions and fees, were illiquid and were difficult to value. History shows that most of these limited partnerships later cratered costing investors billions of dollars. Unfortunately, a similar scenario is playing out at present.