Cocktail Investing

Cocktail Investing authors Lenore Hawkins and Chris Versace

Cocktail Investing provides a much-needed toolkit for individual investors who want to break away from the herd thinking that has trapped all too many investors. How can you hope to outperform if you’re simply looking at the markets, companies and stocks the same way as everyone else? In today’s rapidly changing world, investing is not a “pick it and forget it” activity, but rather a convergence of ever-evolving real-world forces. This practical guide demonstrates why being able to see the direction of these thematic influences is essential to managing your investment portfolio. With reliable techniques for identifying the thematic tailwinds and companies set to capitalize on them, as well as advice for knowing when the party’s over, this easy-to-use tool enables you to:

  • Read the economy like a professional investor;
  • Filter out useless and misleading data to quickly zero in on what matters most;
  • Identify cyclical and structural changes that have reshaped business models;
  • Recognize investing signals and pick those companies or sectors best positioned to benefit from a thematic tailwind while avoiding those facing headwinds.

Investing can be intoxicating – if done right.

Insiders know that the investing world looks nothing like what it did just a few decades ago, yet many investors, including professionals, are still using the same strategies. On top of that, the individual investor planning for his or her family’s financial security is up against tremendous challenges. An overabundance of information and misinformation, all-too-frequent sensationalized headlines and markets that can change direction simply based on the comments of a politician or bureaucrat merely drunk on power, can make all the investment decisions even harder.  Cocktail Investing shows you how to make top-shelf investments by finding the intersection of changing economics, demographics, psychographics, technology and public policy to create investible opportunities, such as:

Tectonic shifts in populations, income levels and age distributions across the globe are fermenting new opportunities.

  • Increasing life expectancy coupled with an aging population is producing a looming retirement crisis where too many have saved too little, while driving demand for a wide range of products and services as people contend with and fight against the effects of aging.
  • In emerging markets, rising disposable incomes are creating a rapidly growing middle class, while in developing economies the middle class is shrinking, shifting the global center of economic gravity.
  • The rising standards of living across the globe will lead to unprecedented demand for already limited and in some cases scarce resources.
  • Rapidly evolving technologies affect everything about how, where and when we work, play and interact with each other.
  • Cyberattacks, hacks and identity theft are now part of the very real global warfare that is spurred on by the increasingly digital and connected lifestyle.
  • Physical currencies are increasingly being replaced by digital and mobile payments, and even cryptocurrencies altering the very meaning of money, threatening the privacy of cash and introducing enormous new opportunities for theft.
  • Some of the largest companies in the world today, and many of the fastest-growing, are in industries that barely existed more than a decade ago and are in the process of disrupting the way we do almost everything in our day-to-day lives.

Cocktail Investing shows you investing can be simple and refreshing. This conversational guide encourages you to break away from the herd mentality on Wall Street and invest in the actionable, observable, and recognizable thematic trends you see every day, while avoiding those often headline-grabbing companies that underneath the hype are facing potentially insurmountable headwinds.

You will learn to:

  • Read through the headlines and know where to look to see where economics, demographics, psychographics, technologies, and public policies are creating clear “investable signals”;
  • Know when, where and how to use those signals in your portfolio;
  • Monitor and grow your portfolio, keeping up with the latest information and trends for a lifetime of successful investing.