Make Money Jot

Book Review: Investment Megatrends by Dr. Bob Froehlich

Wednesday is Make Money Book Reviews at MakeMoneyJot.com. Every week I review a book related to the topic of making money. Last week, I took a look at Hedgehogging. Today, it’s Investment Megatrends.

In Dr. Froehlich’s book, Investment Megatrends, you will learn about a consideration for investing that is one of the more secure predictions for long term investments, but is not commonly discussed for investments – the statistics of demographics.

We are all familiar with trends. Anyone who paid attention to the US stock market for the last couple of weeks would have noticed a disturbing downward trend, because of the real estate decline, which lead to declines in the subprime mortgage market, and which has lead to a larger scare because of how subprime mortgages are packaged and sold.

Megatrend for Investments 

A megatrend, a term coined by John Naisbitt, are large scale changes that effect the political, social, or economics forces for decades. The trends are large scale to the point of effecting nations, regions, continents, or the entire globe. These trends point toward the global shifts that will change the marketplaces for the next twenty years or more.

 According to Dr. Froehlich, the megatrends which are highly significant for investments are demographics, particularly three statistics:

1. Fertility
2. Mortality
3. Migration

Those three demographics produce a valuable picture about the health, wealth, lifespan, and population shifts of global regions which are valuable considerations for investors.

Analyzing Demographics 

To properly analyze the demographic data, Dr. Froehlich suggests four steps:

1. Focus on the extremes – where the statistics produce the greatest variances.
2. Cluster the data – combine the data in to logical groups and correlations.
3. Identify patterns – the indicators which predict future trends.
4. Draw comparisons – where one group of data relates with other groups of data.

Global Shifts 

In this book, Dr. Froehlich reveals four global shifts that produce significant investment opportunities to make money:

• Global Shift #1: The Ponce de Leon Effect: Focusing on the American Baby Boomers
• Global Shift #2: The Walls Keep on Tumbling Down: Focusing on Eastern European Workers
• Global Shift #3: The Rising Sun Is Clearly Setting: Focusing on the Aging Japanese Population
• Global Shift #4: Napoleon Was Right: Focusing on the Chinese Consumer Generation

You will have to read the book to learn more about these global shifts and how they will impact your portfolio. The considerations are significant and definitely impacting on a megatrend scale. Dr. Froehlich has completed all the work with the data necessary for you to benefit in your investment decisions. He even goes as far as laying out twenty stock picks which are best positioned to benefit from these global shifts.

This was a very interesting book to read and the information presented is quickly and easily digestible, so you will be able to benefit from Dr. Froelich expertise. I highly recommend that you consider these global shifts for your 401k and retirement funds. Of course, individual results may vary and I can not guarantee success; I can merely recommend it.

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