Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Micro Strategy Bubble Mania - 10th May 24
Biden's Bureau of Labor Statistics is Cooking Jobs Reports - 10th May 24
Bitcoin Price Swings Analysis - 9th May 24
Could Chinese Gold Be the Straw That Breaks the Dollar's Back? - 9th May 24
The Federal Reserve Is Broke! - 9th May 24
The Elliott Wave Crash Course - 9th May 24
Psychologically Prepared for Bitcoin Bull Market Bubble MANIA Rug Pull Corrections 2024 - 8th May 24
Why You Should Pay Attention to This Time-Tested Stock Market Indicator Now - 8th May 24
Copper: The India Factor - 8th May 24
Gold 2008 and 2022 All Over Again? Stocks, USDX - 8th May 24
Holocaust Survivor States Israel is Like Nazi Germany, The Fourth Reich - 8th May 24
Fourth Reich Invades Rafah Concentration Camp To Kill Palestinian Children - 8th May 24
THE GLOBAL WARMING CLIMATE CHANGE MEGA-TREND IS THE INFLATION MEGA-TREND! - 3rd May 24
Banxe Reviews: Revolutionising Financial Transactions with Innovative Solutions - 3rd May 24
MRNA - The beginning of the end of cancer? - 3rd May 24
The Future of Gaming: What's Coming Next? - 3rd May 24
What is A Split Capital Investment Trust? - 3rd May 24
AI Tech Stocks Earnings Season Stock Market Correction Opportunities - 29th Apr 24
The Federal Reserve's $34.5 Trillion Problem - 29th Apr 24
Inflation Still Runs Hot, Gold and Silver Prices Stabilize - 29th Apr 24
GOLD, OIL and WHEAT STOCKS - 29th Apr 24
Is Bitcoin Still an Asymmetric Opportunity? - 29th Apr 24
AI Tech Stocks Earnings Season Opportunities - 28th Apr 24
S&P Stock Market Detailed Trend Forecast Into End 2024 - 25th Apr 24
US Presidential Election Year Equity Performance in the Presence of an Inverted Yield Curve- 25th Apr 24
Stock Market "Bullish Buzz" Reaches Highest Level in 53 Years - 25th Apr 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

What if the Next Big Thing Is Already Here?

Companies / Investing 2014 Nov 01, 2014 - 11:37 AM GMT

By: Investment_U

Companies

Andrew Gordon writes: Here are some really easy questions...

Are driverless cars the "next best thing"?

Is the new iWatch, expected to come out early next year, the "next best thing"?


How about SpaceX's private spacecrafts?

Or drones? A lot of people think they're going to "change everything."

You agree? Well, a dozen drones will be hitting the market soon.

Which one will take off (sorry for the pun)? This one?

Actually, these questions aren't so easy.

Founders like to talk about their products being the "next big thing." Or that their technology is going to "change the world."

Chances are, the founder really believes it. There's nothing wrong with that.

But you shouldn't.

Google Versus Apple

I recently read an article comparing Google and Apple. It explored which company is most likely to come out with the next great innovation.

The article's answer? Google.

I can see that. Google is working on several "moonshots," from artificial intelligence to space travel.

If Google hits a home run with just one of them, it should be a huge revenue booster. With an annual revenue run rate of $68 billion, that's not easy to do.

So it makes sense for Google to invest in the "next big thing."

But does it make sense for you?

The cynic in me says no. It's too hard to predict. And therefore too risky.

Even if you get the sector right, say, predicting private space travel will take off, you still need to pick the right company and the right technology.

That's a tall order. The vast majority of investors wouldn't be plugged in enough to make the right call.

This isn't about jumping in and taking a deep dive. I do that all the time. This is about already swimming with the sharks or other deep-sea creatures like the extremely ugly blobfish...

You need an ultra-deep understanding of the sector, including a fat Rolodex of contacts to keep you up to speed.

But don't worry if you don't have this. I have another strategy for you. I've been using it for the past 30 years or so with great success. I call it my "DoubleX" strategy, named after Levi Strauss's original jeans, called "XX."

It was also an industry term meaning "highest quality."

Levi Strauss struck it rich in California's Forty-Niner gold rush, but not by finding gold. He sold his heavy denim pants to gold miners as fast as he could make them.

The first step of my strategy? Pick an industry/sector/product that's already taking off. You're not guessing about the next big thing, in other words. It's already happening.

Second step: Choose a high-quality supplier.

So, how would this work in practice? I have the perfect example for you.

It's real and it's happening right now.

Sensor Technology Is Taking Off

The mainstream financial media isn't giving this sector much publicity because, right now, it's really just one company doing the heavy lifting.

That company is decidedly unsexy. But I've been talking about it since August. The company: General Electric (NYSE: GE). The sector? Equipment sensors.

GE has so far attached sensors to 21,500 locomotives, 23,000 wind turbines, 3,900 gas turbines and 20,700 pieces of oil and gas equipment. The resulting data is then fed to repositories for analysis.

GE is already getting amazing results.

For example, it has identified jet engine defects 2,000 times faster than before.

GE will make over a billion bucks this year from its sensor business, setting a record for the fastest time a GE business has reached the billion-dollar mark.

This business is already huge. GE now gathers 50 million pieces of data from 10 million sensors, off equipment worth $1 trillion.

But this is also just the beginning. It's going to get much bigger. William Ruh, vice president of GE, says it's only a tenth of the way there. "In 10 years, 17 billion pieces of equipment will have sensors."

And Ruh isn't including the other big industrial companies. We can fully expect Siemens, ABB, Honeywell, 3M and many more to follow GE's example.

The "DoubleX" Strategy in Action

So, if equipment sensor technology is the booming sector, who is the high-quality supplier?

There are a few interesting ones to consider. I really like the cloud-platform, big data company GE is already using: Pivotal. This impressive company leverages big data better than any other company I've come across. It's perfectly positioned to take full advantage of the coming explosion in equipment sensor technology use.

While GE has invested over $100 million in Pivotal, the company is not open to investors right now.

That's okay. I'm keeping an eye on it, as well as on other candidates that might emerge as high-quality "DoubleX" suppliers in this and other booming (and about-to-boom) sectors. I'll be talking about some of them in future Early Investing articles.

For early investors, it's a sensible approach to investing at the intersection of booming sectors, startups and "moonshot" technology.

Good investing,

Andrew

Note: Andrew sheds light on an incredible opportunity... but not one that's open to ordinary investors. Or is it? A recent change in federal law is making it possible for regular people to invest in pre-IPO companies, which is where truly breathtaking profits can be made. A free subscription to Andrew's newsletter is the best way to get started. Just click here.

Source: http://www.investmentu.com/article/detail/40639/nyse-ge-sensors-what-if-next-big-thing-is-already-here#.VFTvSMmLVwQ

http://www.investmentu.com

Copyright © 1999 - 2014 by The Oxford Club, L.L.C All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Investment U, Attn: Member Services , 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201 Email: CustomerService@InvestmentU.com

Disclaimer: Investment U Disclaimer: Nothing published by Investment U should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investment advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication or 72 hours after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Investment U should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Investment U Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in