I’m a huge believer of “garage” investing. Y’know, investing in companies that are “still in the garage,” a la Apple in the late 70s. While finding companies that early stage isn’t possible in the public markets, it is possible to get close with small- to mid-cap stocks.
These are the stocks most likely to multiply your investment by 10X, 50X, or even 100X.
Today, Amazon is worth more than $3,350 per share. But back in 1997, you could have bought a share of AMZN for $1.50. If you bought and held through all the volatility, you’d be sitting on a gain of more than 2,000X!
That’s because small-cap stocks are capable of generating giant gains in relatively short timeframes.
Why?
Simple. It’s easier for a young, multi-million-dollar company to triple, quadruple, or grow tenfold than it is for a multi-billion-dollar company to do the same.
If a $500 million company gains $250 million in market cap, it’s up 50%. If a $10 billion company gains $250 million, it’s only up 2.5%.
That’s why I take the risk of investing in companies with market caps below $10 billion.
While most people aim to make symmetrical bets, I find it more worthwhile to spend my time hunting for asymmetrical trades.
That is, trades that can multiple my cost basis many, many times over.
Asymmetry is exactly what makes small- to mid-cap stocks worth the risk of investing in “unproven” companies. Let’s unpack this a bit…
If you’re looking to invest $1,000, and you find a blue-chip stock capable of delivering you a nominal profit of $1,000, then you are making a symmetrical bet – you’re risking a dollar for a dollar, so to speak.
If you’re investing $1,000 in a small stock for the chance to make $10,000, you’re making an asymmetrical bet – you’re risking a dollar for ten dollars.
That’s more my speed.
And as an innovation-focused investor, I find potential 10X stocks by looking for emerging leaders in high-growth, secular megatrends.
Megatrends are global shifts in personal or enterprise behavior that are so large, so pervasive, and so impactful that they don’t stop… for anyone or anything.
History is crystal clear on this.
Consider three of the world’s biggest megatrends over the past two decades:
- E-commerce (the global shift from consumers buying things in-store, to buying things online)
- Digital advertising(the global shift from companies advertising on billboards and in newspapers, to advertising on digital media platforms)
- Mobile phones (the global shift from people using letters and faxes to communicate, to using mobile phones to communicate)
Now let’s think about all the market circumstances that might have slowed these three megatrends down from 2000 to 2020.
Major events, both foreseen and unforeseen, have crippled markets. Think of the dot-com bubble, or the Financial Crisis, or multiple stock market flash crashes, or a global pandemic.
And yet… through it all… global e-commerce sales rose by 1,269% from 2000 to 2020…
North America digital ad sales rose by 1,954%…
And mobile phone sales rose by 406%.
Sure, external noise slowed these megatrends somewhat. But none were stopped. And that’s the point. By investing in secular megatrends, you are investing in unstoppable forces.
You are ensuring that you will make money, in a long-term window, regardless of anything else that happens.
It’s as surefire of a bet as there is in financial markets.
And what’s more… these megatrends don’t give you tiny returns.
They give you enormous returns that produce life-changing wealth.
Just look at the returns of the leaders in the e-commerce, digital advertising, and mobile phone megatrends over the past 25 years.
Apple stock is up more than 30,000% since 1995.
Amazon stock is up more than 4,000% since 2000.
Alphabet stock is up more than 1,500% since 2005.
The takeaway is obvious. If you’re a long-term investor looking to become a millionaire in the markets, the best place to start your stock picking process is by choosing emerging investment megatrends.
We are those types of investors looking for life-changing investment opportunities. Naturally, then, I start my stock picking process by identifying up-and-coming megatrends that will redefine our world over the next 10 to 20 years.
But simply finding and investing in megatrends alone is not enough.
Sure, it’s a good start. But will it guarantee that you find the next Apple, or the next Amazon, or the next Alphabet?
No.
To do that, you must dig deeper.
And that’s where innovation comes into play.
Investing in Innovation: Where the Ten-Baggers Live
Innovation is at the center of every history-defining big idea…
Combinatorial innovation led Gutenberg to create the printing press…
Competition between world powers sparked the internet revolution…
Cell phones with bonus features were the norm until Steve Jobs put a full-fledged computer in your pocket, kickstarting the smartphone revolution…
The common thread weaved throughout these hypergrowth events is innovation.
How did Amazon grow from a tiny online bookstore into a global e-commerce empire?
Innovation. Jeff Bezos and company innovated through building a platform that could sell any product to any consumer, in the most convenient way possible.
How did Facebook grow from a college kids’ pastime to a globally ubiquitous digital townhall?
Innovation. Mark Zuckerberg and company innovated through constructing a universally appealing platform that connected the world through computers and smartphones.
How did Netflix grow from a struggling DVD rental service to a streaming TV powerhouse on the cusp of pushing cable TV into extinction?
Innovation. Reed Hastings and company innovated through creating an affordable, easy-to-use platform that allowed consumers to stream any movie or TV show they wanted, at any time they wanted.
Get the point?
Innovation is the origin of big growth.
This has been true for decades. It’s still true today.
So, after you identify unstoppable investment megatrends, what do you do?
You seek out the most innovative companies in those megatrends.
Not the companies with management teams that are happy just to be in the right place at the right time…
Rather, the companies with management teams are that innovatively doing everything they can to grow the business, beat the competition and ultimately dominate the megatrend.
These companies are where you will find the next Apple… the next Amazon… the next Netflix… and they will score you enormous, life-changing returns.
Case-in-point: Square.
Square started out in 2009 by selling flexible and affordable payment card readers to merchants so that they could accept non-cash payments. It was a pure play on the cashless megatrend.
But Jack Dorsey and company weren’t satisfied by simply being a part of the cashless megatrend. They wanted to dominate the cashless megatrend.
So throughout the 2010s, Square innovated, and innovated, and innovated.
It built out a software services ecosystem that supplied payroll assistance and management tools to merchants and retailers…
It expanded into the e-commerce channel, and developed capabilities so that its customers could use Square to simplify digital sales…
It developed bank-like services, including Square Capital, which extended loans to customers…
It created a consumer-facing cashless app, Square Cash, which allowed consumers to digitally deposit, store, and transfer money…
It built out Square Cash to allow consumers to buy-and-sell stocks and even bitcoin through the app, while also attaching usable, physical debit cards to the account…
Now, here we are in 2020, and Square is so much more than just a physical payments processor.
Square has created an end-to-end cashless ecosystem for both buyers and sellers.
And guess what?
Because the company kept innovating, it never stopped growing.
Square’s revenue growth rate back in 2014? About 70%.
Square’s revenue growth rate last quarter? About 60%.
Six years later… on a revenue base about 800% bigger… Square’s revenue growth rate is almost the same, which translates into the fact that Square’s revenues have risen 2,216% over the past seven years.
That’s the power of innovation.
The Power of a Ten-Bagger
You’ve probably heard the term “hypergrowth stocks” before…
But many analysts, investors, and market observers incorrectly overapply the “hypergrowth” label to any company that’s growing quickly.
That’s not how I look at hypergrowth stocks.
Instead, I see hypergrowth stocks as companies that are growing quickly because they are innovative leaders at the heart of emerging megatrends.
Therefore, a business in hypergrowth mode sustains a high-growth trajectory for the next 5, 10, 15-plus years.
That’s the kind of time that leads to compounding of up to 10X, 50X, even 100X gains.
In this sense, our hypergrowth stocks are not flashes in the pan. They are secular, enduring growth stories… some of which may sneak by without the fanfare of a ticker tape parade… because the biggest ideas… the ones that are on the bleeding edge… are sometimes too subtle to notice their brilliance… until it’s too late.
Which is why our hypergrowth stocks can actually make you a millionaire.
That’s not just big talk – look no further than early investors in Tesla. Or, “Teslanaires,” I should say.
Those who bought the TSLA initial public offering and held on through 2021 are up more than 4,000%. Enough to turn every $1,000 investment into $40,000.
That’s why we look for hypergrowth, 10X-plus winners – because when you get this kind of return, you only need one stock to strike it big.
Let’s take a deeper look through the lens of big ideas at ten of my favorite 10X stocks to buy for 2021 and beyond:
1) 10X Solar Energy Stocks to Buy: SunPower (SPWR)
Market Capitalization: $4.7 billion
North America’s solar energy and storage market is booming. Recently, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced groundbreaking news: Solar energy is taking over the world.
I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point… solar energy is a big idea that stands on its own two feet. It just needs the right company with the right products and the right price.
Once economic drivers show up to a party, there’s no going back.
Computers went mainstream thanks to the innovation at IBM and Apple, making them affordable for the masses.
Smartphones became ubiquitous once Apple’s iPhone made consumers realize they wanted functional computers and not telephones that can play Snake.
Tesla went into hyperdrive when Elon Musk & Co. married beautiful aesthetics and eco-friendly engines with affordability.
And solar energy will go into hyperdrive when it becomes the cheapest electricity source in the world.
Enter SunPower (SPWR) – one of the most compelling solar stocks to play the solar megatrend.
In the next two decades, my modeling suggests solar energy will rise from a near-7% share of North America’s electricity generation to 30%-plus. That implies growth of more than 400%.
It is SunPower’s innovative approach to solar energy that has put it on this turbocharged track. Broadly, SunPower is $3.3 billion solar energy storage and distribution leader. It sells solar panels, finances solar panels, and installs the hardware and software for solar panels. And it does this in both residential and commercial markets throughout the States and Canada.
The bull thesis on SunPower stock boils down to three things:
- Big first-mover advantage: In California, where SunPower has been active for decades, it’s garnered 9% of the market in residential solar and more than 50% in new home construction.
- Best-in-breed solar panels: SunPower’s solar panels are top notch, with the most efficient panels in market averaging 19% to 23% efficiency (above the industry’s 14% to 18% rate).
- SPWR stock is priced fairly: SunPower’s stock is heavily discounted when you compare it to peers like SolarEdge, Enphase Energy and Sunrun, which all sport $10-plus billion valuations on 10X forward sales. SPWR, meanwhile, is a $3 billion company with 2X forward sales.
Did you connect the dots? SunPower is a high-growth company in a turbocharged solar industry with 10X potential.
2) 10X Digital Payments Stocks to Buy: Shift4 Payments (FOUR)
Market Cap: $8 billion
We’re all looking for the next big thing.
The next Amazon… the next Facebook… the next Apple…
What about the next Square?
That’s right. We believe that we’ve uncovered a small-cap, freshly public payments technology company that has all the ingredients necessary to turn into the next Square – which is a pretty compelling investment thesis since Square stock is up 1,200% over the past four years.
The name of the company? Shift4 Payments (FOUR).
For a moment, imagine a technology company that has created a robust, end-to-end payments ecosystem enabling merchants and retailers to securely accept and process non-cash payments of all sorts… including a suite of value-add software services such as business intelligence.
Sounds exactly like Square, right?
It does.
But it’s also the business model of Shift4 Payments.
For all intents and purposes, Shift4 Payments is a mini-Square – a big growth payments tech company that’s increasingly turning into mission-critical software for merchants and retailers as cash becomes antiquated and non-cash payments become ubiquitous.
It should be no surprise, then, that Shift4 processed over 3.5 billion transactions for over 200,000 businesses in 2019.
But… there are two critical features that differentiate Shift4 from Square, both of which could supercharge the Shift4 growth narrative over the next 5 to 10 years.
First, Shift4 is omni-channel.
Square does have the market’s best and brightest physical payments solutions. But the company’s online presence is minimal. Shift4, meanwhile, is all about creating an omni-channel payments ecosystem connecting offline shopping with online shopping, so merchants that do business across multiple channels can be covered with one streamlined solution.
Omni-channel is the future of shopping, so Shift4’s leadership in omni-channel payments processing is a huge competitive advantage.
Second, Shift4 has QR code payments.
It’s a novel, breakthrough technology that enables consumers to order and pay their bill at restaurants and retail shops by simply using their smartphone to scan a QR code. No waiters. No sales associates. Just a phone and a payment method.
Considering the current environment, contactless payment methods that also reduce labor costs are the future – and Shift4 has a leading solution for this future.
Thanks to these two critical advantages, Shift4 is optimally positioned to gain share in the secular growth non-cash payments processing market over the next several years.
As the company does, Shift4 stock will soar.
By how much? A lot – since Shift4 is valued at just $8 billion while Square is worth $120 billion…
The potential upside here is huge and compelling.
3) 10X Big Data Stocks to Buy: Cardlytics (CDLX)
Market Cap: $4 billion
What if I told you that understanding one simple idea could make you the world’s best investor?
Sounds crazy, sure. But history proves that understanding one simple idea could make you the best investor of all time.
What exactly is this idea? Big Data equals big money.
Had you understood this simple idea back in 2004, then you would’ve known that Google, who was processing 200 million search queries a day at the time, was going to turn that big search query data into big money. You would’ve bought Google stock at its IPO. And you would’ve made a lot of money – Google stock is up 2,540% since then.
Meanwhile, had you understood this simple idea in 2012, then you would’ve bought Facebook stock at its IPO, and turned a $10,000 investment into more than $50,000.
Lucky for you, we are still in the first inning of the Big Data revolution.
Globally, the Big Data market is expected to grow by 65% to $230 billion over the next 5 years.
During this growth renaissance, multiple companies will make huge breakthroughs in Big Data, and score investors explosive returns along the way.
One such company is in payments data tech company Cardlytics (CDLX).
Think about all the data that is produced every time you swipe your credit card.
There’s data on who made the purchase, what was purchased, where it was purchased, and how much it was purchased for.
That’s a lot of data from just one swipe. Now, consider that 180 million Americans collectively own about a billion credit cards. They use those credit cards several times every week, equating to billions of swipes per week.
Every single week, then, credit cards in the U.S. are producing billions of data points. Cardlytics is tapping this purchase intelligence data to generate enormously valuable insights.
Cardlytics is a $3.3 billion company that leverages credit card data to pair marketers with consumers, and to power relevant and strong bank loyalty programs.
That may sound complex. It’s not.
Cardlytics partners with a bank to run the loyalty program. Cardlytics gets access to the bank’s credit card data. That data tells the company who likes to buy what. Cardlytics leverages that data to pair the right products on the loyalty program to the right consumers. The more successfully the company does this, the more consumers spend, and the more marketers the platform attracts.
Banks win from higher card usage. Marketers win from more product sales. Cardlytics wins from big fees for setting it all up.
Sounds genius to me.
If it’s so genius, they why hasn’t Cardlytics stock exploded yet?
It has. As of this writing, Cardlytics stock is up 600%-plus in the past two years alone.
This rally isn’t over. On the contrary, the party is just getting started.
When Cardlytics debuted on the stock market in early 2018, the company had only partnered with one major bank – Bank of America – and had just 50 million users. Today, Cardlytics has partnerships with three major banks – JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, too – and has over 150 million active users.
At that size, Cardlytics has purchase data on one out of every two card swipes in the U.S.
That’s the big data. What comes next? Big money.
Over the next decade, marketers will flock to Cardlytics because the company has the data to connect them to relevant shoppers better than anybody else. This flocking will cause Cardlytics’ revenues to surge by potentially more than ten-fold over the next ten years.
So, if you’re looking to invest in Big Data and make big money, then consider taking a position in Cardlytics today.
4) 10X Healthy Eating Stocks to Buy: Celsius Holdings (CELH)
Market Cap: $4.3 billion
The food and beverage (F&B) industry is being massively disrupted right now.
Investors who get on the right side of this once-in-a-lifetime disruption could score enormous profits over the next several years.
I’m talking, of course, about the healthy eating megatrend.
A trend wherein young consumers are increasingly paying attention to ingredients (71% read beverage and food labels)…
Trying to reduce sugar intake (77% are trying to limit sugars)…
Going all-organic (more than 50% are increasing the volume of organic products they buy)…
And ditching the high-calorie, sugar-loaded carbonated beverages and carb-heavy, pre-processed foods of old.
Now, they’re all buying non-GMO, sugar-free, preservative-free, organic quinoa, acai bowls, and kombucha.
Oh… but they’re just kids, you say?
Well, those kids are growing up, getting jobs, earning salaries, and increasingly turning into the driving force of the U.S. consumer economy.
Combined Millennial and Gen Z purchasing power will total $3 TRILLION in 2020… and that number is only going up.
As it does, young consumers’ preference for healthy eating will flip the entire $6 trillion food and beverage market on its head…
Allowing for a changing of the guard wherein new titans of industry will emerge.
One such titan will be healthy energy drink maker Celsius Holdings (CELH).
One huge and rapidly growing vertical in the F&B market that is primed for disruption is the energy drink category.
At $60 billion, the global energy drink market is one of the larger beverage markets in the world. With a 7% compounded annual growth rate, it’s also the fastest growing beverage category.
The major players in this space – Red Bull, Monster, and Rockstar – have innovated over the past several years, coming out with new flavors, new packaging, and new marketing…
But they haven’t innovated where it matters… on the healthy eating front… and for the most part, they all still sell sugar-loaded, not-that-good-for-you energy drinks.
This reality represents an enormous opportunity for Celsius, a small beverage company that is optimally positioned to significantly disrupt the $60 billion energy drink market with its breakthrough functional healthy energy drink.
Leaning into its proprietary scientific formulation which combines green tea with EGCG, ginger, and guarana seed to catalyze thermogenesis, Celsius has a created a portfolio of unique, functional healthy energy drinks that have been proven to energize, accelerate metabolism, and burn body fat and calories… all at once.
Plus, the drinks are vegan. Gluten-free. Non-GMO. Contain zero sugar. Zero preservatives. Zero artificial colors or flavors. Zero aspartame.
You know… all the good stuff that young consumers are looking for in a “clean label” these days.
To that end, Celsius has created a scientifically superior and socially more relevant energy drink with the potential to turn into the next big thing in this massive category.
Indeed, this is already happening.
Celsius has grown its sales by 473% since 2016… revenues are projected to rise another 50% this year… and the company is already the 11th ranked brand in the U.S. energy drink market despite only being in ~10% of potential distribution channels.
A 10X increase in that U.S. distribution coupled with international expansion, healthy eating mega-tailwinds, and the company’s best-in-breed functional energy drink products create a clear pathway for Celsius to keep growing revenues at a robust rate for the near future.
The potential upside in Celsius stock herein is enormous.
Simply consider… Red Bull is a $20 billion company… Monster is a $40 billion company…
Could $3.3 billion Celsius get there one day?
Absolutely.
5) 10X Streaming TV Stocks to Buy: CuriosityStream (CURI)
Market Cap: $700 million
“Winners take all.”
It’s an interesting concept that rings true in many circles.
Sports leagues… Poker… Elections…
But not consumer supermarkets – or markets that are so big with so many niches, it’s simply impossible for one company to singularly dominate every aspect of it.
Case-in-point: e-commerce.
Amazon pioneered the concept of e-commerce in the 1990s, and has since become the world’s largest e-commerce platform with a $1.6 trillion market cap.
But in its wake, Amazon has created a burgeoning e-commerce category in which many smaller players are thriving in their own niches.
Wayfair – the “Amazon of home goods” – is a $30 billion company with a stock price that’s soared 1,100% since its 2014 IPO…
Etsy – the “Amazon of arts and crafts” – is a $16 billion company with a stock price that’s soared 775% since its 2015 IPO…
Carvana – the “Amazon of used cars” – is a $42 billion company with a stock price that’s soared 1,350% since its 2017 IPO.
Get the point?
Consumer supermarkets are so big with so many niches that one player doesn’t dominate the whole market – instead, there’s one Batman, and multiple Robins.
The streaming TV consumer supermarket – which is about 10 years behind the e-commerce market – will play out no differently.
That is… just as multiple “mini-Amazons” emerged and scored investors huge returns in the e-commerce boom of the 2010s… multiple “mini-Netflixs” will emerge and score investors huge returns in the streaming TV boom of the 2020s.
One such mini-Netflix will be documentary-focused streaming service CuriosityStream (CURI).
Did you know that 64 million of us watched the Netflix documentary The Tiger King this year?
Or that 75% of Netflix subscribers watch at least one documentary every year?
Or that 40% of consumers watch at least two documentaries per month? And 51% of Gen X’ers watch more than ten documentaries per month?
Those are huge numbers. And they underscore the reality that consumers have an enormous appetite for documentaries.
To help meet that demand, the Discovery Channel’s original founder – John Hendricks – departed from his $28 billion media empire in 2014 to join forces with his daughter and launch CuriosityStream, a direct-to-consumer streaming platform built exclusively for factual programming.
Just as Chewy turned into the Amazon of pet supplies and Wayfair turned into the Amazon of home goods, CuriosityStream will turn into the Netflix of documentaries.
That bull thesis breaks down into two parts.
One, the Netflix of documentaries will emerge and it will be a big thing.
That’s because demand is huge and growing, while creating supply to meet that demand requires specialization (making a documentary involves very different mechanics than making a movie or TV show).
Sure, Netflix has had some big documentary hits. So has Amazon. But for the foreseeable future, they will continue to produce no more than a few grand slam documentaries every year – meaning there will be tons of room for another platform to fill in the gaps between those infrequent hits.
Two, if anyone does turn into the Netflix of documentaries, it will be CuriosityStream.
The company is the industry’s first-mover.
CuriosityStream has been around since 2015, and already has over 13 million global subscribers as well as a robust content portfolio that is unmatched in the space.
CuriosityStream is also supported by top-tier leadership.
In the documentary industry, when Hendricks calls, you answer. His clout is unrivaled, and his experience and reputation will help CuriosityStream build on its early leadership through more valuable content additions.
Plus, the streaming platform’s economic pricing is a huge value prop.
CuriosityStream sells for about $3 per month. That is industry-low pricing, which is enabled by industry-low production costs (you don’t have to pay animals to act) and creates an attractive value prop in a world where consumers will be bundling multiple streaming services (and where you can gain on-demand access to thousands of high-quality documentaries for less than the price of a Big Mac).
On that bundling note, CuriosityStream also has well-established and broad distribution.
The service is already available as an “up-sell” option on various streaming platforms – like Amazon Prime Video – and this up-sell provides high visibility to it becoming a companion service for existing Amazon or Apple TV subs who simply want to watch more documentaries.
So… in a nutshell:
- The Netflix of documentaries will emerge in the 2020s.
- Such a platform will be big.
- CuriosityStream will very likely be that platform.
And yet, CuriosityStream has a market cap of just $700 million today.
Netflix is a $220 billion company.
It’s easy to see how CuriosityStream stock rises 10X (or more) from here.
6) 10X Self-Driving Stocks to Buy: Foresight Autonomous (FRSX)
Market Cap: $330 million
Back in 2014, Apple boss Tim Cook approved an ambitious project to make an Apple-branded, electric self-driving car that would take on Tesla in the automotive world.
The project, codenamed “Titan,” has been moving in fits and starts ever since. Ultimately, nothing tangible has been produced for either consumers or investors, and the so-called Apple Car has had zero to minimal impact on Apple’s stock price.
Until 2020.
Apple stock has been rising in recent days on reports that Apple is moving forward with project Titan and targeting to produce a self-driving electric Apple Car by 2024.
This is a sign of the times.
Apple is not at the forefront of the self-driving revolution. If anything, the company is miles behind the likes of Alphabet/Waymo, Uber/Aurora, Amazon/Zoox, and many others.
Yet, despite being far behind, Apple is clearly committed to throwing the kitchen sink – and by that, I mean the company’s $200 billion cash hoard – at solving the self-driving problem.
Why?
Because it’s worth it.
Self-driving technology is going to change the world. It’s going to fundamentally disrupt everything we know about the $1.4 trillion automobile market. It’s going to destroy legacy auto titans, and create new ones in their place.
And it’s all going to happen soon…
Meaning the time to invest in the unprecedented self-driving revolution is now.
One of the potentially most explosive investment opportunities in this space is Foresight Autonomous (FRSX).
The key to unlocking self-driving capability is giving cars “vision,” or the ability to sense and react to their surroundings.
Of course, cars cannot do that themselves… so, we build sensors and put them on cars to give them that vision.
Visual cameras are one such sensor. LiDAR are another such sensor. So are RADAR.
All of these sensors are great. None of them are perfect. They all have shortcomings. And, because consumers won’t broadly adopt AVs until they are 100% safe, shortcomings simply won’t cut it in self-driving.
Thus, the self-driving car of the future will include all three of these sensors in its “autonomy stack.”
Another sensor that will likely be included in the autonomy stack are thermal cameras – and that’s great news for a Foresight, because they help make thermal sensors.
One common shortcoming among visual cameras, LiDAR, and RADAR is that none perform all that great in adverse weather conditions. Rain, fog, sun glare, and snow can all cause these sensors to have “blurry vision” and make mistakes.
To address this common shortcoming, the industry has developed thermal cameras.
Thermal cameras cut through the weather noise and provide uninterrupted thermal data. That’s important, because the two most important objects on the road that you don’t want to hit – cars and humans – emit a ton of heat, regardless if it’s a sunny, rainy, or snowy day.
Thus, thermal cameras provide an important and often mission-critical information source for self-driving cars to sense other cars and humans on foggy morning, snowy days, and rainy nights.
That’s why many self-driving experts see thermal cameras reaching ubiquitous adoption in vehicle autonomy stacks.
Foresight Autonomous plays a critical role in developing these thermal cameras.
Specifically, Foresight Autonomous has developed a proprietary AV tech platform – dubbed QuadSight – which blends visible-light camera data with thermal camera data to create a complete, uninterrupted picture of a car’s surroundings.
The result? An exceptionally accurate obstacle detection system… with near zero false alerts… that detects any object, regardless of size, shape or material… and operates in even the harshest weather and lighting conditions.
It’s a great solution.
To be sure, many other companies are making thermal cameras and experimenting with similar tech. But Foresight is the only one that has a direct partnership with Flir – the world’s largest thermal imaging company – in which the industry titan will actually help Foresight make these QuadSight systems.
This partnership is a huge vote of confidence from the industry’s most advanced player. It broadly underscores the idea that when it comes to thermal cameras and object detection technology, Foresight Autonomous is in a class of its own.
Let’s connect the dots.
Self-driving cars are coming soon. Thermal cameras have potential to reach ubiquity among self-driving cars. Foresight Autonomous is the highest quality player in the thermal camera/detection space.
The writing is on the wall. Foresight Autonomous’ QuadSight platform could potentially transform into a huge, mission-critical building block of the multi-trillion-dollar self-driving revolution.
And yet… the company has a market cap of just $330 million today.
That’s because the company hasn’t sold many QuadSight systems yet. But that could change. In a big way. Very soon. And when it does, this tiny company could turn into a multi-billion-dollar AV tech giant.
7) 10X Clean Energy Stocks to Buy: Fusion Fuel (HTOO)
Market Cap: $150 million
Hydrogen stocks were some of the biggest winners in 2020.
Industry leader Plug Power (PLUG) saw its stock price rise just shy of 1,000% last year, while shares of FuelCell Energy (FCEL), Bloom Energy (BE), and Ballard Power (BLDP) all rose more than 225%.
These big rallies were driven by – as we’ve discussed at length before in these issues – falling hydrogen fuel cell costs, strengthening legislative support for clean energy, and a pivot into “Green Hydrogen” production (where hydrogen is created from renewable energy sources, not natural gas).
These stocks have taken a breather in 2021.
But this long-term rally is far from over.
Democrats have seized control of Washington D.C. For the next two years, they’ll retain power in the White House and both chambers of Congress. Over that stretch, they will pass sweeping legislation to combat climate change. A core tenant of that legislation will likely be substantially larger and extended subsidies for hydrogen, particularly for green hydrogen.
The result will be a “Green Wave” over the next few years wherein consumer and business adoption of green hydrogen will soar.
So… make no mistake… the Hydrogen Economy breakout that started in 2020, won’t end in 2021.
Rather, it’s only going to accelerate and gain momentum over the next few years.
As it does, red-hot hydrogen stocks will only get hotter…
One of the best stocks to buy to play this burgeoning Hydrogen Economy is Fusion Fuel (HTOO).
For all its wonderful benefits, hydrogen has one major shortcoming: Poor energy conversion efficiency.
Long story short, hydrogen – while the most abundant element in the universe – doesn’t exist in its pure form on Earth. So, producing hydrogen requires a complex, multi-step process that results in significant electricity loss.
Not good. Until producing green hydrogen becomes more efficient, it will forever remain a niche energy source.
Fortunately, Fusion Fuel is on the cutting edge of creating a new type of hyper-efficient green hydrogen.
Here’s the story.
Solar electricity is converted into hydrogen power using a fuel cell called an “electrolyzer.” These electrolyzers have traditionally been too big to place on solar panels or modules themselves, so the electrolysis has historically been done off site. The transfer of solar energy from panel to electrolyzer usually results in some energy loss, contributing to hydrogen’s low efficiency.
Fusion Fuel, though, has developed proprietary super-small electrolyzers that can be integrated into the solar cell. Thus, there is no energy transfer and no energy loss.
At the same time, by performing “at-the-source” electrolysis, Fusion Fuel’s electrolyzers are able to utilize the solar system’s “waste heat” – or heat that is generated as a byproduct of the system doing work (think about how your computer generates heat when it does work).
Without energy transfer loss and with waste heat utilization, Fusion Fuel’s electrolyzers are pioneering a new era of hyper-efficient green hydrogen.
Fusion Fuel’s systems convert solar energy into hydrogen at a 27% conversion rate, which is more than double the status quo in the market today.
Meanwhile, due to this dramatic increase in conversion efficiency, Fusion Fuel is able to produce a lot of green hydrogen while using a fraction of the resources of anyone else in the market – which, in turn, enables Fusion Fuel to deliver green hydrogen at industry-low costs.
Fusion Fuel’s green hydrogen sells for about 50% to 80% less than other green hydrogen in the market.
In other words, Fusion Fuel is leveraging proprietary technology to create a new class of green hydrogen that is twice as efficient as anything out there, and about half as expensive as anything else, too.
That’s broadly a winning combination which implies that Fusion Fuel will turn into the world’s biggest green hydrogen producer.
To be sure, this is far from a reality today. Fusion Fuel is not actively commercializing green hydrogen yet, hence the mere $150 million market cap.
But… the company is in negotiations to develop multiple green hydrogen projects throughout Europe over the next one to five years.
As these hydrogen projects come to life, the world will start to see that Fusion Fuel’s breakthrough electrolyzer technology does indeed result in hyper-efficient and hyper-cheap green hydrogen.
And… as that happens… Fusion Fuel will go from having a promising technology concept in 2020, to being the global supplier backbone of the Hydrogen Economy by 2025.
8) 10X iGaming Stocks to Buy: Golden Nugget (GNOG)
Market Cap: $1.1 billion
Covid-19 changed the world in a lot of ways.
Perhaps most obviously, it accelerated the world’s shift into the modern digital era.
Throughout the pandemic, we all spent more time (and dollars) online: ordering more food via delivery apps, scrolling through social media apps, bingeing hit shows on streaming platforms, and co-working through digital platforms like Slack.
You know what else we did more of during the pandemic?
We gambled online.
New Jersey –home to America’s most established and mature online gambling market – saw iGaming revenues rise an astounding 40% from January to April 2020.
This is not a temporary shift.
Much like our shift to e-commerce and streaming TV platforms, 2020’s shift to online gambling is a permanent acceleration into the future of the $100 billion gambling world.
Why?
For all the same reasons that Amazon is the future of shopping and Netflix is the future of media.
To succeed, iGaming must be as compelling as in-casino gambling. And it is – offering consumers superior convenience, access, and affordability (you can play a game of virtual poker or blackjack, and win real money, by just sitting at your home and clicking a few buttons on your computer).
Sure, online gambling is only actively legal in seven states today – New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Nevada, Delaware, and Nebraska. But with the overturning of PAPSA in 2018, growing consumer interest in online gambling, and physical casino shutdowns in 2020, there is ample and growing momentum across many states to legalize iGaming over the next few years.
The floodgates are opening.
As they do, the iGaming market will go from niche to enormously mainstream by 2030.
To play this emerging megatrend, one of the best 10X opportunities is Golden Nugget Online Gaming (GNOG).
You may recognize the name “Golden Nugget.” That’s because it’s a large casino brand with properties in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, which itself is part of a bigger hospitality company named Landry’s that owns 600 shopping outlets, 3 hotels, 2 amusement parks, and 5 casinos across America.
Golden Nugget Online Gaming – or GNOG, for short – is a pure iGaming spin-off of that larger physical casino business, that recently came public through a reverse merger with blank-check company Landcadia Holdings II.
GNOG offers virtual poker, virtual blackjack, virtual slots and much more through a desktop website and mobile application. Today, the company operates exclusively in the New Jersey iGaming market, where it controls about 13% of the market.
The bull thesis here is that GNOG will be able to leverage competitive advantages to sustain ~10% share of the iGaming market as that market booms and goes national in the 2020s.
Considering GNOG’s success in NJ, I think this is totally doable.
GNOG – as an online casino hub – has a branding edge over platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel, both of which are more sports oriented. Consumers looking to play slots or poker online are more likely to gravitate toward the casino-branded platform.
It also has a content edge over Caesars and MGM, as GNOG – with 870 casino content titles – boasts 130 more titles than anyone else… much of which is exclusive to GNOG, and the company launches upward of a dozen new exclusive casino games ever year.
Perhaps above all else, GNOG has a business edge over everyone with something called a “Live Dealer Studio” – which, as the name implies, enables virtual tables players to interact with a live dealer via visual and audio (the company has entire “ghost” casinos set up with just dealers, tables, and cameras).
Thanks to these enduring competitive advantages, it seems very likely that GNOG will sustain ~10% share of the iGaming market for the foreseeable future – a reality that my numbers suggest will result in a $10-plus BILLION market capitalization.
The current market cap sits at roughly $1 billion… so 10X gains are very doable here.
9) 10X Biometrics Stocks to Buy: Intellicheck (IDN)
Market Cap: $152 million
What can you buy for a buck?
Well, you can grab a McDonald’s small coffee, a song on iTunes, a scratch-off lottery ticket… oh, and a social security number.
Yep, according to Experian, stolen social security numbers are sold on the dark web for as little as $1.
Of course, that’s a big problem. If a cybercriminal has your social security number, then they are only steps away from opening up fraudulent banking accounts, applying for new credit cards, making fake purchases, and potentially stealing tens of thousands of dollars from you.
But, from a financial perspective, that’s not really your problem. Sure, your credit will get zapped, but under federal law, the most you’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for unauthorized use of a credit card is $50.
So, who foots the bill?
Banks.
As the organizations that are supposed to secure and protect your finances, financial institutions are the bag holders when identity theft results in financial loss.
Those losses aren’t small.
Every year, identity theft costs financial institutions billions of dollars. One estimate puts it at $16 billion per year.
That’s a big number – big enough that securing and protecting your finances is often a bank’s top priority.
But legacy methods of knowledge-based security – where you use pieces of data (like passwords, SSNs, and security questions) to log into accounts – aren’t cutting it in today’s digital world where data can be stolen and sold in an instant by advanced hackers.
That’s why the new wave of financial security is being powered by biometrics – things like facial recognition and finger ID software – because while your SSN can be stolen and sold on the dark web, your face and fingerprint cannot.
Up until recently, biometric technology wasn’t good enough to be a suitable and scalable replacement for knowledge-based security. But now it is – and as a result, the entire financial industry is rapidly pivoting from knowledge-based security to biometric security, powering what every major market research firm in the world sees as 20%-plus compounded annual revenue growth in the biometric security market over the next five-plus years.
The time to invest in biometrics is now.
And the best way to invest in biometrics is through Intellicheck (IDN).
Intellicheck has been in the identity verification game for over 25 years, employing a plug-and-play proprietary software solution, which scans the barcode on the back of government-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards to verify that those cards are not fakes.
Originally, Intellicheck applied that technology to the most obvious end-mark: age-restricted products. Think bars, restaurants, or convenience stores, where sellers have to verify IDs when buyers are purchasing alcohol.
That’s an interesting market. But not a particularly big or exciting one – and certainly not the sort of market which will turn Intellicheck into a multi-billion-dollar company.
So… over the past few years… Intellicheck has significantly expanded its core ID checking software, and turned it into a breakthrough, end-to-end biometric security solution that is rapidly disrupting the financial security market.
In short, Intellicheck has added multi-factor authentication (MFA) and biometric features to its core ID checking software, so that the new Intellicheck process now looks like this:
- Let’s say you’re applying for a new branded credit card online through Bank A. Bank A will collect your phone number, and send you a text, asking you to take a picture of the barcode on the back of your driver’s license.
- Intellicheck software will leverage its proprietary database to verify that the ID is authentic.
- Bank A will then ask you to take a picture of the headshot on the front of the ID and to follow that up with a selfie picture.
- Intellicheck software will leverage its proprietary biometric techniques to verify that you are the person on the ID card.
- Bank A then knows – unequivocally and in a matter of minutes – that you are who say you are, and is 100% comfortable issuing you the branded credit card.
Of course, this real-time identity fraud detection process built on an ID card plus facial biometric recognition technology has an almost infinite number of applications across the financial sector. Intellicheck, for its part, is applying its breakthrough process across the board, including credit card applications, call centers, online orders, deposits/withdrawals, and many more.
Across these various financial security end-markets, Intellicheck’s biometric security solution – which is 99% accurate – is seeing rapid uptake, without any churn and with huge repeat orders.
Two years ago, Intellicheck had just four bank customers. Today, the company has a dozen bank customers, including most of the top 10 banks in the U.S. – and Intellicheck continues to sign a new banking customer pretty much every few months.
Of course, this rapid expansion in the financial security sector has led to huge revenue growth. Revenues rose 73% last year and are up another 75% through the first half of 2020.
Despite this huge growth, Intellicheck hasn’t lost a single customer to a competitor.
And – perhaps above all else – Intellicheck’s new and improved offering is leading to massive repeat orders. One big-box client who has been using Intellicheck since 2013 and whose contract expired in February 2020, renewed that contract at fees 56% higher than the old contract.
The future of biometric financial security is here.
Intellicheck’s novel ID card + facial biometric recognition technology is quickly turning into the financial world’s new favorite security technique.
Eventually, this technology will become ubiquitous across the entire financial sector. Considering identity theft costs banks billions each year, Intellicheck has a visible runway to turning into a multi-billion-dollar company one day.
With that in mind, it’s probably best to put up-and-coming Intellicheck stock on your “buy” radar today.
10) 10X AdTech Stocks to Buy: PubMatic (PUBM)
Market Cap: $2.7 billion
Over two years ago, a tiny little ad tech company with a $2 billion market cap had built a valuable programmatic advertising platform. This platform wasn’t very widely used, but its ability to leverage data for better optimization of digital ad campaigns proved promising to brands.
Back then, Wall Street wasn’t talking about the company. But I believed it would become the next big thing in ad tech.
Why?
Because the future of advertising was data-driven. This company eliminated the guess work from advertising, facilitating superior outcomes for its users. This company was The Trade Desk, and it offered the market’s best demand-side ad tech platform for data-driven advertising.
Since then, that tiny, $2 billion company with a not-very-widely used platform has turned into a $40 BILLION titan of industry. And its data-driven advertising platform challenges the likes of Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
If you bought the stock back in 2018, it was likely one of the best plays you could’ve made in the stock market…
Now, I think I’ve found the next Trade Desk.
This small company is freshly public, which means it doesn’t even have a chart for the past twelve months. And it is exactly where The Trade Desk was back in 2018 – sporting a $2 billion market cap and a valuable, yet not widely used data-driven ad tech platform.
Over the next two years, it could do exactly what The Trade Desk did over the past two years – and that is soar by nearly 20X.
When it comes to advertising, you have two sides to consider: the demand side (or buy side) and the supply side (or sell side).
The demand side represents the brands and marketing agencies that buy advertising inventory for marketing purposes. The supply side represents content publishers and app developers that sell ad inventory to monetize their platforms.
Think of TTD as the buy side’s tool of choice. And think of PubMatic (PUBM) as its sell-side equivalent.
PUBM stock recently came public via a hugely successful IPO in December 2020. Its sell-side ad tech platform leverages data-driven algorithms and tools to help content publishers and app developers maximize the value of their ad inventory.
In essence, PubMatic combines ad bid data from demand-side platforms, with consumer demographic and interest data from content publishers, to help ad inventory owners put the right ads in front of the right consumers, so as to increase advertiser return-on-investment (ROI) and publisher revenue.
Think of it as The Trade Desk for ad sellers.
And just like with TTD, PubMatic’s business model is all about the data.
PubMatic runs on the same data-driven growth flywheel as TTD, which was able to leverage its ad data on the buy side to become a titan of industry. Similarly, PubMatic’s first-mover advantage in the sell-side programmatic ad tech business allows it to forge partnerships with some of the biggest ad sellers around. That includes News Corp, Verizon, AMC, and Electronic Arts.
This matters only because it means PubMatic has amassed the largest and most valuable dataset in the sell-side programmatic ad tech world.
Right now, it processes 1 trillion ad bids on a per-day basis! And its daily ad impressions are in the billions (134 billion, to be precise).
In sum, PubMatic is responsible for 1.65 petabytes of data… every day. That’s unprecedented in the ad tech space.
While its data advantage is enormous, it’s not PubMatic’s only edge…
The company’s approach to providing sell-side ad tech solutions is unique and potentially game-changing.
While sell-side platforms traditionally focused exclusively on what’s known as a “closed box loop,” PUBM has opened its process up. The result is a more transparent and coordinated advertising process, that allows it to integrate with leading buy-side players. Such as The Trade Desk.
As such, PUBM gets both the buy- and sell-side parts of the ad equation to work together, which should only bolster the effectiveness of PubMatic’s solutions.
Further, PubMatic has a reputation as an innovator in the space. Two of the five customers it lists in its S-1 filing cite PubMatic’s “innovation” as the reason for choosing the company.
This mostly stems from the company’s leadership in header bidding, which PubMatic basically pioneered.
But, more importantly, its innovation bodes well for future product developments and business expansions.
While nothing is a “sure thing,” PubMatic does have all same ingredients that The Trade Desk had two years ago… and that worked out to a 20X gain for The Trade Desk stock in just 24 months.
Could PubMatic pull off a similar meteoric rally? Absolutely… which means that PubMatic stock deserves to be your buy radar today.
Best regards,
Luke Lango
Editor, Hypergrowth Investing
