Louis Navellier and I are busy putting the finishing touches on our Early Warning Summit 2021, and we can’t wait to talk with you more tomorrow to help you formulate your investing strategy for the coming year.
(It’s free to attend. Just make sure you click here to reserve your spot.)
We didn’t plan the summit’s timing to coincide with the week the first COVID-19 vaccinations were given, but we’re thrilled that it worked out that way. The availability of multiple vaccines that appear to be highly effective is a big reason we’re both so bullish on 2021.
Plus, none of us can wait to return to normal.
Actually, we should say the “new normal.”
As the vaccine becomes more widely distributed and states and even countries around the world start to reopen fully, some things aren’t going to be the way they were before.
But that isn’t a bad thing. In fact, just the opposite. It can be good for us as people … and good for us as investors, too.
We already knew the future would be very different in the next five to 10 years, but history shows that a crisis often accelerates the inevitable. That’s what has happened with some of the hypergrowth investment trends and game-changing breakthroughs coming our way.
The vaccine itself is a great example. In less than a year, scientists went from not even knowing COVID-19 existed to the first doses administered this week. That’s absolutely mind blowing. The previous fastest vaccine was for mumps … and that took four years.
That shows how far healthcare technology has advanced. And there’s so much more to come as science incorporates the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
AI helped in the vaccine development, and it’s revolutionizing how drugs are discovered.
It currently takes approximately 10 years for a new drug to go from development stage to FDA approval. The cost has risen over the years and now clocks in at $2.6 billion. That’s a ton of money, especially considering the success rate from clinical trials to approval is only about 12%.
This is where AI can make a big difference. The data of past drug trials combined with patient data — a massive amount of information — can be harnessed to help predict outcomes, lower costs, and accelerate the time to approval. It should also increase the approval rate, as companies will be able to run powerful simulations to determine early whether to proceed to expensive trials.
A form of AI called machine learning can help researchers find desired molecules from huge data libraries, suggest chemical modifications, identify existing drug candidates that could be repurposed for new uses, and more.
It makes us think that global pandemics may one day be a thing of the past. Once a virus is identified, the time to a vaccine could be reduced to months, resulting in far fewer deaths and significantly less economic disruption.
Think, too, of how many more things we can now do remotely — from school to work to doctor’s visits and more.
The ability to “see” your doctor via your phone or computer has always been convenient, but it has never been so important. Now, telemedicine isn’t just talking to your doctor on a screen. Health professionals can also monitor their patients remotely, which is something else we’ll see more of in the new normal.
Or think about telecommuting. Sure, more offices will reopen, but you can bet more people will work at home, be it all the time or some of the time. Companies will require less physical office space, which will save them money.
This trend has also been in the works for some time, but it took a major leap forward this year. In fact, our Power Portfolio 2020 did very well with RingCentral (NYSE:RNG), which has more than doubled here in 2020. We didn’t know the pandemic would force so many people and businesses to rely on Ring Central, Zoom Video Communications, and the like, but we invested in it because it was the leader in a fast-growing industry.
Our biggest winner was JD.com (NASDAQ:JD), which gained 161% in the portfolio. It is one of China’s leading e-commerce companies — again, an already growing industry that exploded during the pandemic.
So, we can’t wait to get back to normal — an even better normal in many cases. COVID-19 didn’t stop many of the hypergrowth trends. It only accelerated them.
The future will be different after the COVID-19 pandemic, and understanding that is important to your investing future.
We’ll talk more about that tomorrow, and how you can position yourself to make money in a post-COVID world.
If you haven’t already, make sure you reserve your spot now. We look forward to seeing you then.
On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
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