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Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

One of the most persistent narratives of the equities rally is how poorly alternative investments have performed. A new survey from Morningstar and Barron's shows that while some institutional investors have pulled back from investing in alternatives, the advisor community is digging in.

"Financial advisors are increasingly enthusiastic about alternatives. Advisors have a far wider range of liquid products to choose from than in the past, while institutions have become less enamored because of the high fees and poor transparency of traditional hedge funds," Josh Charlson, CFA, director of manager research for alternative strategies, told Opalesque.

According to the responses, sixty-three percent of advisors believe they will allocate more than 11 percent of assets to alternatives over the next five years, compared with 39 percent who expressed that level of commitment in 2013. However, institutional investors that expected to allocate more than 25 percent to alternatives declined from 31 percent to 22 percent.

Still, a remaining portion of institutional investors (45%) say that they see alternatives as "somewhat less important" or "much less important" than traditional investments, as compared with 28 percent the previous year.

On a strategy basis, multi-strat funds are leading the pack in terms of investor interest. Multi-strategy funds are often available in both mutual fund and private placement format, owing to ......................

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