The only guarantees in life are death and taxes.

I know this sounds a bit morbid, but it’s a common phrase used in the finance industry. The word “guarantee” is taught to be nixed from your vocabulary.

And while this truth about death and taxes may be true, there are other near-certainties in life — some of which have made (and lost) investors millions of dollars over the last few centuries.

One of these certainties is population growth.

Every minute there are roughly 255 births worldwide, along with about 108 deaths. That leaves 147 net additions to the world every single minute. That works out to be more than 211,000 people every day added to the world population.

During 2015, the world’s population will grow by about 80 million — equal to the population of California, New York and Texas combined.

My colleague Nathan Slaughter of Total Yield gave an interesting perspective on the stress that the growing global population has on the economy and the transportation industry, in particular.

#-ad_banner-#Nathan discussed the drastic steps local officials have taken in China’s capital, Beijing, to help curb traffic gridlock (one of the side effects of surging population growth).

See, the Chinese government has instituted a lottery system for license plates. Only a limited number of private and commercial registrations are allocated each month. And this year they’ve taken it a step further by cutting the number of available license plates by 40% to only 150,000.

Beijing has more than 15 million residents, yet only 150,000 drivers will be able to get a license plate this year.

The demand for license plates is so high that it’s created a lucrative black market, where license plates are routinely sold for as much as 200,000 yuan ($32,000).

If desperate citizens are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a license plate, then that should give you a pretty good idea of the underlying demand for automobiles. And as an investor, that tells me one thing with near-100% certainty: the world needs more transportation.

Seeing this massive trend is easy, but profiting from it is another story. Fortunately, over the years Nathan has been dissecting this trend and finding major winners.

For example, back in April 2013 he endorsed vehicle supplier Delphi Automotive (Nasdaq: DLPH). Today, it’s trading near its 52-week high — up more than 100%.

And it’s this same broader trend that led him to pick Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) as his inaugural holding for Total Yield back in January 2014. Readers who bought on his original recommendation are now enjoying triple-digit gains.

Today the need for more transportation is as apparent as ever. And there are numerous companies benefitting from this trend, many of which are reporting record-shattering sales and earnings. This has translated nicely across many industries that deal with transportation in some shape or form.

The list goes on, but as you can see, the world needs more planes, trains and automobiles — providing an entire ecosystem of investment opportunities. And the table above lists a number of companies poised to benefit.

But there’s a supplier to this broader trend that Nathan likes best. The company produces specialty aluminum parts for cars, trucks and commercial aircraft. Now this company doesn’t actually mine for the aluminum — which is a costly endeavor — but rather takes the raw material and molds it under exact specifications.

As Nathan explained in his recent issue of Total Yield:

The company he’s talking about is Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (Nasdaq: KALU). Headquartered in California, it has 12 fabricating facilities in North America, which produce and ship more than 500 million pounds of product annually. Kaiser supplies vehicle manufacturers like Nissan, Honda, Toyota and General Motors.

U.S. carmakers produce roughly 17 million vehicles every year, and with government mandates requiring better fuel mileage, automakers are turning to lightweight aluminum materials to cut down on weight. A great example is the new Ford F-150, which is now made up of nearly all aluminum, making it roughly 700 pounds lighter than previous models.

Nathan also likes Kaiser’s friendly shareholder practices — a key part of his strategy in Total Yield. The company dished out $24.7 million in dividends over the past year and returned nearly three times as much capital ($63.1 million) through share repurchases. Now this may not sound like a huge amount when compared to larger companies, but Kaiser is a small stock with a market cap of just $1.3 billion.

When seeking out the best companies that will benefit from growing trends, like the growing population, there’s no one better than Nathan Slaughter. He’s able to sift through thousands of companies to identify the best ones that reward shareholders through dividends and share buybacks — a strategy that’s proven to beat the market since 1986.

Right now, Nathan and his subscribers are sitting on gains of up to 114% in his Total Yield portfolio. And in his April issue, he added four stocks with “Total Yields” as high as 11.7%. If you’re interested in learning more about Nathan’s Total Yield research and getting your hands on his latest picks, then I encourage you to visit this link.