My Seven-Figure Alternative Investment Portfolio: Recurring Deep-Dive Series (2017–2026)

By Ian Ippolito · Last updated May 4, 2026 · Code of Ethics

Eight years of public, deal-by-deal disclosure of a defensive seven-figure alternative investment portfolio — real allocations, real returns, real losses, across the 2020 pandemic, the 2022 macro crisis, and the 2026 real-estate down-cycle.

(Usual disclaimer: I'm just an investor expressing my personal opinion and am not an attorney, accountant nor your financial advisor. Consult your own financial professionals before making any financial decisions. Code of Ethics: To remove conflicts of interest that are rife on other sites, I/we do not accept ANY money from outside sponsors or platforms for ANYTHING. This includes but is not limited to: no money for postings, nor reviews, nor advertising, nor affiliate leads etc. Nor do I/we negotiate special terms for ourselves in the club above what we negotiate for the benefit of members. Info may contains errors so use at your own risk. See Code of Ethics for more info.)

Why this series exists

Most portfolio articles on the internet are theoretical. This one is not. Since October 2017, I've been publicly disclosing my actual seven-figure alternative investment and real estate portfolio — deal by deal, with real dollar percentages, real returns, and real losses. This master index collects every update from the original 2017 disclosure through the latest 2026 entry. Together they form the longest continuous first-person disclosure of an alternative investment portfolio that I'm aware of from a non-institutional investor.

A few things make these updates different from anything you'll find elsewhere.

Real allocations and real returns, not directional commentary. Each update breaks the portfolio down by asset class as a percentage of total, names every sponsor, and reports actual income and total return for each. When something underperformed — Lending Club, a stalled land development, a hard-money fund whose underwriting drifted — I say so by name and explain why I exited.

When something outperformed — Broadstone Net Lease's 12.7% in 2019, the 41.32% total return in 2022 while stocks, bonds, and bitcoin all fell sharply — the math is on the page.

No sponsor money, ever. This site accepts zero compensation from any platform, sponsor, or affiliate program — no paid postings, no paid reviews, no leads, no special personal terms. That's binding policy, not aspiration. The series exists because most sources of investment commentary have a financial interest in what they recommend; this one does not. (Code of Ethics →)

A complete cycle on the record. The series now spans the late-cycle 2017–2019 period, the 2020 pandemic stress test, the 2022 macro crisis with stocks, bonds, and crypto all falling together, and a 2026 real-estate down-cycle. That breadth is the actual value of the archive — anyone can publish one good year; very few investors have published eight across a full cycle.

Each update follows the same structure: portfolio overview, allocation, deal-by-deal performance, tax treatment, what changed since the prior update, and what's next. Reading them in sequence is the closest thing available to watching a real investor's allocation evolve through actual markets.

The latest update is the 2026 Q1 update — and how my defensive portfolio has weathered the real-estate down-cycle.

Year	Headline return	What this update covered
2026 Q1 (latest — Mar 2026)	TBD on full return (+6.33% income confirmed; year-end valuations pending)	First "typical" cycle year for the portfolio. Real-estate down-cycle stress test. Vintage-year-investing strategy vindicated. Includes AI-era allocation analysis and outlook.
2023 Q2 (Feb 2023)	+14.37% (6.71% income)	Continued defensive outperformance during the macro crisis: stocks −6.8%, bonds −8.52%, bitcoin −34.01%. Updated deal-by-deal, allocation, tax.
2022 Q2 (May 2022)	+41.32% (7.37% income)	Exceptional outperformance year: stocks −3.35%, bonds −10%, bitcoin −33.87%. The macro-crisis test for the portfolio's defensive design.
2020 Q3 (Oct 2020)	+11.58% (6.77% income)	Pandemic stress test. The "boring-by-design" portfolio held up through the sharpest U.S. downturn in recorded history.
2019 Q4 (Dec 2019)	+8.0% income	Pivot from "real estate" to "alternative investments." Three uncorrelated asset classes added: litigation finance, life settlements, non-RE business loans.
2019 Q1 (Jan 2019)	+8.76%	First full year of stress-tested returns while public stocks fell. Added a detailed tax-treatment breakdown for every asset class.
2018 Q1/Q2 (Mar 2018)	+9.3%	Profitable exit (160%) on a risky development deal, continued exit from Lending Club, added MG Properties for "defer-defer-and-die" tax strategy.
2017 (Oct 2017 — series launch)	+8.1%	Series debut. Conservative "quick and slow" strategy, no leverage, allocation across residential rentals (45%), hard-money debt (37%), NNN, and tail positions.