Tired of Stocks and Bonds? Try These Four Alternatives

3. Forex, Part II: The Yen, an Unlikely Leader

The Japanese currency has long confounded the world's economy because of its relative weakness to that of other nations—an advantage when it comes to the sharp-elbowed world of global trade.

The currency's rise against the US dollar

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[JPY=X  Loading...      ()   ] has been equally confounding. When the trend began to unfold in early August, most analysts wrote it off as a technical glitch unlikely to last, but they so far have been wrong.

The dollar has fallen 15 percent against the yen since its most recent high on May 3, and the trend shows little sign of abating.

"We are somewhat amused at the relentless urge on the part of traders to call the yen's top," said Dennis Gartman, writing Tuesday morning in The Gartman Letter. "The trend remains upward for the yen, despite the antipathy toward that trend by Japan's major exporters, who voice their opposition to this strength at every turn."

Like commodities, currencies either can be traded directly in spot trades, through options contracts, or within a variety of ETFs that play either on the individual currencies or on pair trades on movements between various countries.

4. Emerging Markets, the Infrastructure Play

Though the sharp rise in US capital markets in 2009 somewhat dimmed the allure of emerging markets, the latter group is back in 2010 and has attracted more investor attention in the second half.

Investors this year are betting that the dire need for better infrastructure in places such as Brazil, India and South Africa will present investment opportunities.

"Transportation and logistics continues to be one of the largest areas of need for emerging markets," Kate Moore and Michael Hartnett, global equity strategists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told clients. "Over the next three years, we project that it will account for more than 30 percent of infrastructure investment."

The strategists advised clients to take a two-pronged approach: Owning a diversified mix of equity exposure, which the firm holds in its EM Infrastructure Index; and through the $24 billion high-yielding emerging market corporate bonds space.

"EM governments understand that infrastructure investments in energy, water, agriculture and transportation are necessary to sustain urbanization trends and will lay the groundwork for decades of economic growth and the development of private enterprise," Moore and Hartnett wrote.