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What is the next big thing in investing?

Jbreen1

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Originally Posted by lawyerdad
Foreign investing has been big for quite a while now. My only point was that if everybody's talking about it, it might still be the current big thing, and it almost certainly was the last big thing, but it's unlikely to be the next big thing. The goal is to get there before everyone else, not immediately after.

True. But it's always going to be a good way to invest. Because the dollar is stronger in almost every other country. So you convert your dollar to Euro or whatever, buy a security, transfer the euros to U.S. dollars when it matures and your original investment is quite a bit larger just from the exchange rate. But yes this has been done for a while but will continue to be a great one I think.
 

GQgeek

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Widgets. Buy widgets. They're always talking about them in economics textbooks.
 

Rome

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Originally Posted by Coho
While I don't know much about investing at this point because I have to focus on my school work, my father is very experienced at this point. He did well during the internet boom with AOL and later eBay since he was close friends with the guys at Benchmark Capital, a high profile firm in Northern California. He told me that the next big thing might be bio-informatics. As the pharmaceutical companies are somewhat frustrated with conventional treatments, we will likely see genomic treatments in the future. There are many markers for a certain disease, and your genome provides the greatest statistical odds of whether you will or will not develop it. Once genomic sequencing becomes cheap (like ~$1000 for each human genome), we will see more therapeutic applications. Of course, when this happens, it will be another leap forward in medicine and the companies that have the technology to organize and provides this information (with a respect for privacy and trust from their customers) to physicians would be needed. They will likely work side by side with conventional health insurance companies, much like paypal and ebay. He could be very wrong but this is my field and I could imagine this happening.

This has been on my radar since companies started trying to buy up patents to certain proteins and genomes themselves for the sake of discovering some form of preventative application. Only the old adage is that theres no money in preventing only treating has kept me from looking in further. That and a lot of genomes will lead nowhere once explored further.
 

Philosoph

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Originally Posted by Jbreen1
True. But it's always going to be a good way to invest. Because the dollar is stronger in almost every other country. So you convert your dollar to Euro or whatever, buy a security, transfer the euros to U.S. dollars when it matures and your original investment is quite a bit larger just from the exchange rate. But yes this has been done for a while but will continue to be a great one I think.

This isn't really my field, but it occurs to me that perhaps this wouldn't be the best idea at the moment, depending on what market you're looking at. Euros? I don't think so... not right now.
 

Jbreen1

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Originally Posted by Philosoph
This isn't really my field, but it occurs to me that perhaps this wouldn't be the best idea at the moment, depending on what market you're looking at. Euros? I don't think so... not right now.

Yea not the best right now because the dollar is pretty weak. But it's still a good option, based on my studies and professor's.
 

eg1

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Invest in whatever "Chindia" will be buying (agriculturals and commodities) and avoid whatever they will be selling (durables and electronics).

In NorAm, invest in things that cannot be outsourced because they require somebody "on the spot" to provide the service; avoid whatever can be outsourced unless it is an outsourcing provider that will use a global footprint.
 

v0rtex

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Originally Posted by eg1
Invest in whatever "Chindia" will be buying (agriculturals and commodities) and avoid whatever they will be selling (durables and electronics).
What effects will price controls in those economies have on investments there? If there's an artificially low price imposed on those agriculturals/commodities this would hurt your ROI? Or are you banking on those markets gradually opening up? Also, would such investments be protected from a crash of the (overheating) stock markets in those countries? Obviously both nations are expanding quickly and have a basic need for agriculturals/commodities, but are those sectors already overvalued? All sounds a bit risky, but I guess risk is where the big money comes from. (Total amateur with no investing experience, just interested in learning for when I am in a position to invest)
 

lawyerdad

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Originally Posted by iammatt
I feel that I can pretty well predict some of the major trends over the next five years, the problem is that they are the same one everybody else has predicted and that has already been priced into the assets in question.

To sucessfully invest in "the next big thing", you need several things. First is the ability to predict the future both correctly and in a way different than others see it. Second, you need to have the ability (access) to invest in these emerging trends, and third you need to be able to pay a low enough price so that your prediction is not only correct, but also profitable.


Fair enough. You better expressed what I meant, anyway. I intended my comments to be more specific -- i.e., skepticism about the ability to predict the "next big thing".
 

lawyerdad

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Originally Posted by Jbreen1
True. But it's always going to be a good way to invest. Because the dollar is stronger in almost every other country. So you convert your dollar to Euro or whatever, buy a security, transfer the euros to U.S. dollars when it matures and your original investment is quite a bit larger just from the exchange rate. But yes this has been done for a while but will continue to be a great one I think.

Huh?
 

RJman

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Put options.
 

Duveen

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On the genomics/bioinformatics issue -- there was a ton of VC speculation in bioinformatics companies about 5-7 years ago and they generally did not pan out. While this is likely an interesting long-term (15-25 year) trend, it is not very useful for short-term investing, largely because neither the science nor the reimbursement are in place for this stuff at the moment.

The 23andme model of 'consumer driven' bioinofrmatics that is on people's radar now will only go so far, as the cost remains pretty high and the utility minimal.

Picking the 'next Google' among the current crop of bioinfo companies will be pretty darned hard. Again, there is so much runway before this stuff can lead to real commercialization that it will be difficult to separate the Commodores from the Apples....
 

itsstillmatt

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Originally Posted by dopey
Is there a "collected works" somewhere? In particular, I would like to read the comparison between REITs and ass cleavage.
As somebody charged with managing a few REIT portfolios, I can assure you that over the last year there has been a strong correlation between REITs and ass.
 

eg1

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Originally Posted by v0rtex
What effects will price controls in those economies have on investments there? If there's an artificially low price imposed on those agriculturals/commodities this would hurt your ROI? Or are you banking on those markets gradually opening up?

Also, would such investments be protected from a crash of the (overheating) stock markets in those countries? Obviously both nations are expanding quickly and have a basic need for agriculturals/commodities, but are those sectors already overvalued?

All sounds a bit risky, but I guess risk is where the big money comes from.

(Total amateur with no investing experience, just interested in learning for when I am in a position to invest)


I'm not really recommending buying foreign stocks, just the stocks of companies that sell those things into "Chindia", and avoiding the ones that must compete with the products/commodities coming out of those economies.
 

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