The stock market rise has been dubbed by some the “idiot-maker rally,” for its gravity-defying gains despite a lack of fundamentals. Nevertheless, the Dow (DJI) now sits above 15,000 and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) above 1600, both up more than 14% this year.

Related: There’s More to This Market Rally Than Meets the Eye

When you look at the smart money, though, how are they actually making impressive returns?

Take the Yale endowment. It’s up 100% over the last decade, according to Bob Rice, author of The Alternative Answer. But in 2012, just 6% of Yale’s portfolio was allocated to U.S. equities. Half was invested in absolute return, private equity, and real asset strategies – all alternative investments - while another chunk was in emerging markets.

In The Alternative Answer, Rice writes that "institutional investors and their ultrawealthy friends have had an unfair advantage: access to strategies and vehicles that were both unknown and unavailable to the rest of us.”

Rice, who is also

Who would have thought that Fannie Mae (FNMA), once the recipient of $116 billion in government bailout funds, would one day be the reason the government could delay its debt ceiling deadline by almost four months?

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told CNBC Friday that a one-time payment of $59.4 billion from Fannie Mae pushes back the debt ceiling deadline effectively from May 19 “until at least Labor Day,” which falls on September 2.

Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms also expect the government won’t run out of spending money until this fall.

Related: Next 5 Months Are Critical for Budget Reform: Maya MacGuineas

“The good news is things actually are a getting better on the deficit,” says The Daily Ticker’s Henry Blodget. “ Everyone hates the sequester but it went in [effect]…the lines are closing…the deficit will be smaller.”

The bad news is that Republicans and Democrats still haven’t agreed on a plan to deal with the debt ceiling when it is reached, and this latest