When it comes to finding the trends of tomorrow, you need to think big.

Don’t think about what’s going to happen in the next week … or month … or even the next year. What happens in 2022 is not going to make or break your financial situation.

Think bigger. Think about multiyear, even multidecade, mega trends that have momentum behind them.

If you can’t, that’s OK. The whole Money & Markets team has been researching where we feel the most amount of bang for your buck is going to happen.

Here are five mega trends that we have our eyes on. A lot of these developments are going to gain traction over the next 12 to 18 months. And we believe there are years of life-changing wealth generation ahead.

Genomics Continues to Accelerate

genomics mega trendI’ve talked about one of these mega trends for a number of years already: genomics. The cost of DNA sequencing has plummeted, and the number of genomes that we’ve sequenced has skyrocketed. The COVID-19 genome was sequenced in just 40 hours. That was unimaginable even a few years ago.

2021 was a sea-change year. It was the first year in which the FDA approved an AI-assisted diagnosis. It’s a watershed moment. It’s a breakthrough for further FDA approvals in the AI-assisted medicine space.

I’ve been bullish on the genomics mega trend for well over three years now, and I think it’s only going to continue to accelerate.

AI-assistance Is the Future

The second mega-trend is AI-assistance. (Artificial intelligence is not a great name. It needs a better marketing name. I like machine learning or big data algorithmic decision making.) Basically, the amount of data, processing power and cutting-edge algorithms we have is growing at an exponential rate.

We’re going to see AI-assisted medicine, but we’re also going to see AI-assisted financial decisions and insurance premium decisions. We’re going to see it all across the whole spectrum of industries, and that’s why I see AI as a “generalist” technology that’s going to be pervasive in a number of industries.

Whenever you see something like that, it’s a hugely investable trend. Because you don’t have to pick which industry is going to win over the other, you can invest in a fundamental technology that’s going to help all of them.

Companies Go Digital

The third mega trend is what we’re calling digital acceleration.

A crisis like COVID-19 accelerates trends that were already in place. We already saw an acceleration of companies adopting cloud computing. They did that out of necessity. Working and managing resources remotely greatly accelerated that need.

But digital acceleration is about more than just cloud: It’s about quantum computing, blockchain and decentralized finance as well. There’s a number of subthemes within that digital acceleration mega trend that we’re looking at closely.

Green Energy Is Ripe for Innovation

green energy stock mega trendFinally, we have the green tech mega trend, which itself also has a number of subtrends.

So we’re talking about electric vehicles, we’re talking about batteries, everything from the small ones that go in your smartwatch or earbuds, to electric vehicles — all the way up to utility-scale installations that big power companies are bringing online for renewable energy sources like wind, solar and even biomass.

We’re doing a lot of research and bringing some interesting, innovative companies to you all in that field, as well as in renewable energy overall.

A lot of solar energy companies had a nice run-up in 2020. They had kind of a pullback in 2021, and have traded sideways, much like genomics and biotech names as well.

This year was a buying opportunity for genomics and for renewable energy plays, and I think that we’re going to see more upward momentum in 2022 and beyond.

Mega Trend Bonus: Tech Gets Smarter

Adam: Matt, what are you most excited about for this coming year?

Matt Clark: For me, I am all about smart tech.

I’ve written about smart tech a lot, and I enjoy that field. It’s amazing to research how many new ideas and gadgets are out there and how quickly we are elevating the tech game. We’re a long way from the large computers that would stand in a corner at NASA.

I think we’re only going to keep that momentum going in terms of scaling down and powering up when it comes to smart tech.

How to Follow These Mega Trends

There are plenty of ways to follow these mega trends. You can buy into certain exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that follow these developments, take a chance on some up-and-coming companies or invest in stodgy stalwart businesses that are revolutionizing their businesses to keep up.

My Green Zone Fortunes readers are already investing in companies involved in some of these mega trends, and we’ll have plenty of new stock recommendations coming in 2022.

If you’d like to learn more about Green Zone Fortunes, watch my “Imperium” presentation now. You’ll learn about the technology that I believe will lead the genomics revolution over the coming years.

Click here to join us now, and get ready for a fantastic year of investing in 2022.

More Money & Markets Predictions for 2022

The Money & Markets team has more bold predictions and insights into what’s on the horizon in 2022:

To good profits,

Adam O’Dell

Chief Investment Strategist