Nasdaq has introduced auction funds, which allow an opportunity each month for exchanging shares in private-placement-like alternative funds similar to buying and selling of bonds, says Bob Rice of Nasdaq Private Market's advisory board. Alternative investments represent "less constrained active management" that broadens opportunities to elevate portfolios, says Scott Welch of Dynasty Financial Partners.

A decade of net outflow from actively managed mutual funds is linked to the bull market, managers say. "The only market in which passive outperforms active is the market we're in right now, with increasing asset prices and increasing [price-earnings] multiples, and the reason that's been the case is because of the extraordinary policies of the Federal Reserve," said Bob Rice, chief investment strategist at Tangent Capital.