At a time of considerable financial turbulence, the Trump administration is edging ever closer toward allowing individual investors access to private equity funds through their retirement accounts. The aim, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said last week, is to “ensure that ordinary people investing for retirement have the opportunities they need for a secure retirement.”
Historically, private equity -- or investments in private companies -- has been off limits except for wealthy individual investors or big institutional ones. Hedge funds, which typically use more complicated strategies than mutual funds, are still off limits.
