Stock Investing For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14. Emerging Sector Opportunities

In This Chapter

• Checking out bullish opportunities

• Understanding your bearish opportunities

• Getting investment pointers for your unique situation

I'm thrilled to include this chapter again in this 3rd edition of Stock Investing For Dummies. Had you read this chapter in the previous edition and acted accordingly, you could have made a fortune (I kid you not). So I think that it earns an encore. A lot of this book is about making your own decisions and doing your own research, but what the heck — if I can save you some time and effort, why not? You can thank me later. Anyway, it's time to make you privy to what my research tells me are unfolding megatrends that offer the greatest potential rewards (or risks) for stock investors.

Only a handful of changes in your portfolio over the past four decades would have made you tremendously rich. Had you put your money into natural resources (such as gold, silver, and oil) at the beginning of the 1970s and stayed put until the end of the decade, you would have made a fortune. Then, had you cashed in and switched to Japanese stocks in 1980 and held them for the rest of the decade, you would have made another fortune. Then, had you switched in 1990 to U.S. stocks for the entire decade, you would have made yet another fortune. What if you had cashed in your stocks in 2000? Well, for starters, you would have avoided huge losses in the down bear market. How about being bullish? What looks like a strong bull market ...