Global Healthcare is One of The World’s Biggest MegaTrends
I built my entire investing philosophy off of what I call “MegaTrends.” These are trends that aren’t going anywhere in the discernable future, like global healthcare or infrastructure.
While some of you would much prefer if I just handed you a list of stocks to buy, I believe that if you want to be a successful investor you need to develop a discerning eye. You have to ask yourself, what makes this company better to invest in than its competitors?
While the differences are sometimes significant, other times they’re much more subtle. It’s for this reason I built my Trendsetter Strategy. Using this framework, I’ve developed fundamental, technical, and sentimental screens that let me evaluate which among the thousands of stocks are the most valuable for my portfolio.
You see, I only hold a small amount of stocks at any one time. I hold many of them for years to let the MegaTrends play out, but only if they meet my most fundamental criteria. They have to earn their keep, which means they have to grow at least 20% per year. There’s no holding and hoping, these stocks have to move from day one.
My core belief is that we need to invest in trends, not events. MegaTrend stocks are what underpin the market over decades and can survive its short-term up and down fluctuations. Can you think of anything that fits the bill better than the global healthcare industry?
Tech Leads the Global Healthcare Revolution
Healthcare spending is rising, and it’s rising on a global basis.
Despite rising healthcare costs in the US, little is being done to make it more accessible, affordable, or efficient. Their legislators have almost addressed this many times, but it seems every step forward takes them two steps back.
While Europe has a well-structured healthcare system, it’s now dealing with the challenges of affording it during tough economic times.
In China, the goal is to build a modern healthcare system that covers its 1.6 billion citizens. It needs to do this efficiently to stand on the same ground as other developed nations.
What do all these healthcare markets have in common? They all need technology to help bring costs under control and also serve as many people as they can with quality services. The graph below shows that “Other Healthcare Verticals” are projected to grow exponentially and take up nearly as much of the market as pharmaceuticals in the US.
Source: Google Sites
This represents the impact of technology on the healthcare system. From digitized records to improved diagnostic equipment, a lot of money is shifting to new tech solutions. Below is a snapshot of what the tech revolution looks like in China. You can see that despite the short history of telemedicine, many believe it’s going to play a big role in the near future.
While the world’s two largest economies face different pressures in their healthcare systems, the fact is, both are turning to technology to solve them.
It’s Not the Cure but the Diagnosis
It’s clear that advances in technology have helped prevent some illnesses and diseases in a traditional way, but there’s another interesting development for us to consider.
Thanks to digital records, advanced diagnostics are more accessible than ever. There’s been a realization in global healthcare markets that keeping better and more connected stores of patient information lead to significantly increased chances to catch diseases and illnesses before they become acute.
Improving diagnostics even further is a huge part of the global strategy that both developed and developing healthcare systems are using to reduce costs and provide quality service at the lowest price to the most people.
This outlook has supplanted the legacy view that medicine would be the revolution in global healthcare. Certainly, medicines have been revolutionary. Just look at the new wave of mRNA vaccines that were developed at lightning speeds, or even recently developed immuno-oncology drugs and gene therapies.
However, vaccines aren’t big money makers. Pharmaceutical companies distribute vaccines to millions in the name of public safety, leaving little room for profit. Additionally, some other cutting-edge solutions only work for those challenged by specific diseases.
Diagnostics help everyone.
Beyond Human Healthcare
Beyond advanced diagnostics, consider that keeping humans healthy starts much earlier than regular visits to the doctor. As we’ve seen with COVID-19, SARS, AIDS, swine flus and avian flus, the animals we come in contact with play a huge part in global health.
Before the pandemic happened, the African Swine Flu hit epidemic proportions in China, the largest pork consumer and producer in the world. China culled 40% of its pig population, which sent food price inflation soaring, hurting Chinese consumers and their economy. The virus even jumped to people in some cases.
On the heels of that tragedy, many countries are realizing that animal health and wellness are crucial, especially for livestock. Of course, that seems like child-play compared to the global effects of COVID-19. We need no other examples to illustrate just how devastating species-jumping viruses can be to human life and economy.
Despite this, consumer purchases of pets also rose during the pandemic. Veterinary clinics and animal hospitals are going to have their hands full. You can see how large the veterinary drugs market is expected to grow in the graph below.
Source: Medgadget
Learn More about MegaTrends like Global Healthcare
Global Healthcare is a key MegaTrend that endures in a bull run or bear cave, the definition of a safe investment. That’s why I built and perfected my Trendsetter Strategy – to find the best stocks in the most enduring long-term MegaTrends.
As you can see from our continuing discussions about the long curve of healthcare changes and spending, MegaTrends encompass long-term trends that will unfold over many years. Long-term commitments by large corporations and governments are what drives them, not short-term events.
They drive the markets quietly and invisibly year after year. The companies in these MegaTrends are the stocks that investors flock to in good times for growth and bad times for safety.
Five years ago, I created and invested in a US-based stock-only portfolio to share with my subscribers. Here’s what its performance looks like now.
That’s not what the performance of the broader averages looks like. You won’t see this kind of growth if you’re socked away in index funds.
What’s more, I don’t trade all the time to get this performance. Over half of my stocks have been in my portfolios for more than 3 years.
The quick profits from day trading might be intoxicating, but the time and effort you have to spend analyzing the markets to stay on top isn’t sustainable. Let me do the legwork for you. With my decades of experience identifying and investing in MegaTrends, I know the stocks I pick are low-risk, high return investments.
It’s one of the key reasons I can go on holiday for a month without worrying about what happens in the markets. If it’s bad, I know my stocks will be the first to recover. If it’s good, I know my stocks will outperform the others.
It’s all about picking right stocks and allowing them to perform, which means buying stocks that are focused on MegaTrends. If you want easy investing, you’ve found it. All you have to do is buy when I buy and sell when I sell.
The best news of all is that Proffe’s Global Growth Portfolio is only $49.95 for an annual subscription! That’s 24 issues of a live stock portfolio that you can easily and profitably follow.
