Technology Trends Will Drive 2014 Investing

Welcome to 2014! It is a new year, and that means the ledgers have been wiped clean following strong returns in the stock market last year. Even though you may have earned more than a few double-digit percentage wins like subscribers to my investment newsletter PowerTrend Profits did — more than 16 double-digit percentage winners in all of 2013, with some as high as 70% — all of that is over. Now is the time to start all over again. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been using the holidays to uncover several new investments that offer at least 25% upside for my subscribers. Even after the run up in the stock market in the last three months of 2013, including the Santa Claus rally, there are a number of promising prospects that I’ll be sharing with my subscribers to turbocharge their returns in the coming year.

I’m always using my PowerTrend way of looking at the world to uncover what opportunities lie ahead. Sometimes I chuckle to myself when the Wall Street herd catches up to what I have been sharing with subscribers to PowerTrend Profits for months… after we’ve made some hefty profits.

Let me give you an example. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal ran a story about how Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) are looking to expand their digital footprint to include automobiles. More than several months ago, in the May 2013 issue, PowerTrend Profits subscribers learned all about what I call The Connected Car and the group of companies behind the rise of connectivity into the car, from an industrial and monitoring perspective to a digital content and connectivity one. With the smartphone market, and to a lesser extent the tablet market, relying more and more on replacement demand, device manufacturers and semiconductor companies are looking for new markets that they can tap. The Connected Car is only one of them, and all of this action is happening because of the intersection of connectivity, the cheapness of computing power and the Internet.

In many ways, these three forces — the Internet, connectivity and computing power — have shifted the balance of power on their own, but taken together, they radically have transformed how businesses and people just like you do things every day. With companies like General Electric (GE), Starbucks (SBUX) and many others outfitting turbines, jet engines, refrigerators and more with sensors and semiconductors to collect data in order to improve both products and efficiencies, this transformation is only now getting into second gear.

Just after the year-end holidays, the largest trade show in North America happens — the Consumer Electronics Show — and each year I tune in to see the latest product announcements and to understand which technologies are being adopted, if not exploited. One technology that looks to be the center of attention is Bluetooth. Many of you have seen this technology in wireless headsets and hands-free car systems, but there is an entirely new set of products that are utilizing the low energy, high connectivity power of Bluetooth, and The Connected Car is but one of them. I’ll be sharing my insights soon from this annual event as soon as it gets underway next week.

Subscribers to PowerTrend Profits are already locked and loaded for this new opportunity; are you?

In case you missed it, I encourage you to read my PowerTrend Brief posted last week about how you can use malls to predict the success of retailers. I also invite you to comment in the space provided below.