Asset managers selling private assets to everyday investors claim to have found investing’s holy grail: lower risk (or at least less volatility) and better returns. Is that true? The answer is mixed.

When private equity firms present their track records to investors, the charts often look too good to be true—higher returns with lower volatility than public markets. As it turns out, they often are ...

New research, focused on 19 of the 25 largest U.S. private equity-leveraged buyout families, argues private equity is riskier than the publicly traded funds in which defined contribution plans ...