Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Introduction

What if we have the Foresight to see what will happen to the stock market in the future? How would we be able to profit from our strategic positional advantage, to make the right winning investments and become rich in the process?

Is it possible? The short answer is an emphatic “Yes”, but with some limitations.

Futurist Technologies, i.e. the technologies to develop Foresight is not an exact science, and will never be, simply because we are dealing with human behavior which are by nature, always learning from the surrounding environment, and thus, are always in a constant flux of change. Scientists name such behavior as an Open Soft System, as opposed to a Closed Hard System with predictable behavior, as you would expect from a computer or a car.

Also, we are dealing with events that have not yet happened, and thus, it is not possible to assess their impact on the future. Millions of events are occurring all over the world every minute. Furthermore, the occurrence of one event may lead to a series of other events. Similarly, the non occurrence of that particular event may result in the same series of events not occurring. Thus, there are millions of permutations as to what may happen in the future.

Yet, despite these limitations and seemingly uncontrollable nature of the stock market environment, it is the thesis of this writer that not only can we have Great Foresight on the future, but actually use such a Strategic Advantage to make profitable investments.

Why is this possible? To understand this is to understand how Explorers conquer the unknown. Foresight is the exploration of the unknown. When Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe, he did not have a precise map of the world. No such map existed, for no one had even come close to circumnavigating the globe before him. Thus, he was dealing with the unknown. He did not know whether he would succeed for sure, but what he knew was that from the Americas, he needed to cross the Pacific Ocean and head West, if he wanted to reach China. He did not have the exact latitude and longitude to sail to, but merely sailed in the general strategic direction. He had to trust and use his judgment as events unfolded before him.

Similarly, whilst it is not possible to have a perfectly accurate Foresight Compass of the future, it is possible to know the strategic direction of key driving forces shaping the future, and their potential impact on the future. With the Futurist Technologies, we have a Strategic Foresight Compass, one that may not be able to state exactly what and when to buy and sell, but we can still be guided by the strategic direction of which country, industry and financial instrument, would do well in the future.

If we intend to make money from the stock market, we must have a Winning Edge – a strategic advantage over others. If we are guided by the right winning strategic direction, i.e. if our investments are guided by Great Foresight of what will happen in the future, we have that Winning Edge.

For example, if we know that the US economy is going into a recession, we may become bearish in our stock market outlook and initially sell all our investment positions, and then eventually even take up Short Positions to take advantage of a Bear Market. On the other hand, if the economy looks like it is recovering from a severe recession, we would want to position ourselves for a bull market by buying fundamentally sound stocks in industries that will lead the recovery process.

Is this Strategic Positional Advantage sufficient to be consistently profitable? No. Just because Magellan headed West did not mean that he will definitely arrive in China. He still needed to refine his map to a much more precise level before he actually arrived at his destination.

Similarly, we will need to be much more precise in our investment analysis using other technologies like Fundamental Analysis, which informs us of what to buy, as well as Technical Analysis, which guides us on when to buy. However, without the strategic direction, i.e. if Magellan had sailed randomly where the winds took him, could he have any reasonable hope of finding China?

Similarly, if we do not understand the Strategic Economic Cycles, we can know the internal strength of a particular stock of interest, but will not know how the economic and business environment will affect its future. To be successful in investments, we need to develop Strategic Foresight on the Future, in particular, the economic conditions and the business and industry environment that the particular stock is operating in. Just because we are a proficient sailor doesn’t mean we do not need a compass and a map to guide us to where we want to go. Similarly, just because we are good at fundamental analysis of a stock, doesn’t mean that we do not need a map of the future.

This blog is about learning how to draw maps of the future. It is about how to develop Great Foresight by being an explorer of the unknown, guided only by strategic directions. The Futurist Technology explained here is the Strategic Compass that will guide us in our quest to develop the necessary Foresight on the Future; to guide us through the darkness before the road ahead is visible. Similarly, it will guide us in knowing when we are wrong in our assessment, and thus, hopefully, empower us to change course before it is too late.

In short, this blog is about developing Strategic Investment Foresight, the Sixth Sense Advantage, and how to profit from such an in-depth understanding of how the key driving forces are shaping the future.

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