If I had to name the biggest game-changing trend of the past decade — a trend that has disturbed the most companies, made the biggest organizational impact, changed the way businesses are structured, and impacted the most lives — it would be cloud computing. Nothing short of a paradigm change, the advent of the cloud has truly transformed the way most technology companies do business. Even consumer companies have been significantly affected by the shift. #-ad_banner-#The premise behind the cloud computing is simple: When technology — from simple applications to complete data centers — is delivered over the internet, it… Read More

If I had to name the biggest game-changing trend of the past decade — a trend that has disturbed the most companies, made the biggest organizational impact, changed the way businesses are structured, and impacted the most lives — it would be cloud computing. Nothing short of a paradigm change, the advent of the cloud has truly transformed the way most technology companies do business. Even consumer companies have been significantly affected by the shift. #-ad_banner-#The premise behind the cloud computing is simple: When technology — from simple applications to complete data centers — is delivered over the internet, it can be delivered as-needed, or on-demand. This on-demand business is now known as the cloud. The on-demand feature makes everything easier. Companies have found that signing up for on-demand services is the easiest way to meet their future needs; the cloud-based model can easily get you more (or less), depending on how those needs change. It also turns out that consuming technology over the internet is less expensive than doing it the traditional way: Basically, you pay for what you use — no more, no less. It requires much less hardware, too: All the hard work is done somewhere off-site… Read More

One broker I know was fond of saying, “If you hold on to a good stock long enough, you’ll end up making money.” Coming from a stock broker, this was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it actually makes sense: In the long term, strong stocks with good fundamentals win. So the key word here is “good.” For the stock to move higher, investors must have reasons to like it. They look at the business’ future promise and determine whether or not today’s price fully reflects those expectations. #-ad_banner-#Investing isn’t a game of chance. Days, weeks and sometimes months… Read More

One broker I know was fond of saying, “If you hold on to a good stock long enough, you’ll end up making money.” Coming from a stock broker, this was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it actually makes sense: In the long term, strong stocks with good fundamentals win. So the key word here is “good.” For the stock to move higher, investors must have reasons to like it. They look at the business’ future promise and determine whether or not today’s price fully reflects those expectations. #-ad_banner-#Investing isn’t a game of chance. Days, weeks and sometimes months of painstaking research go into figuring out what’s good and what’s not, and millions of active investors do this work constantly. What makes it more complicated is that we all invest based on the outlook for the future, and the future is good at delivering surprises. But because so many analysts and investors do their homework, they are rarely collectively wrong. Without having a special knowledge of the future, the market processes all available information and makes a determination about the company’s future — and a stock’s ultimate direction is a reflection of that collective opinion. Of course, the markets… Read More

At my premium newsletter Game-Changing Stocks, I have the challenging but exciting task of identifying companies that are set to change the way the world operates. I’m talking about companies that hold the promise of revolutionizing their specific sectors of the economy or companies that create and nurture promising new businesses. And, of course, these are companies that will richly reward investors. #-ad_banner-#If there’s one thing true game-changers have in common, it’s the ability to innovate. But it’s not just companies that are innovative — countries can be, too. An innovation-friendly environment on a country level should, in theory, do… Read More

At my premium newsletter Game-Changing Stocks, I have the challenging but exciting task of identifying companies that are set to change the way the world operates. I’m talking about companies that hold the promise of revolutionizing their specific sectors of the economy or companies that create and nurture promising new businesses. And, of course, these are companies that will richly reward investors. #-ad_banner-#If there’s one thing true game-changers have in common, it’s the ability to innovate. But it’s not just companies that are innovative — countries can be, too. An innovation-friendly environment on a country level should, in theory, do wonders for companies domiciled in this country. Therefore, it should end up benefitting investors, too. So to complement my growing set of promising companies in Game-Changing Stocks, I recently featured a look at a highly innovative country that holds promise of fostering as many game-changing ideas as possible. It’s not a coincidence that so many revolutionary technologies, processes, consumer goods, medicines and devices originated here in the United States: Our country spends a big chunk of its GDP on research & development (R&D). The National Science Foundation put the number at a record $499 billion in 2015. Of that amount,… Read More