Discerning investment themes through megatrends

Pictet's Denis Schmidli says megatrends can help the discerning investor find opportunities in long-term growth sectors

In investments, just as in life, there are precious few certainties. Events of the last few years have clearly demonstrated just how hard it can be to predict the path of financial markets. Identifying what we call ‘megatrends’, secular trends in the population, in the environment and in society, we think is a somewhat easier task. Some of these ‘megatrends’ have, in effect, been running for hundreds of years. Since they are phenomena that continue with a relatively high degree of certainty, they can help the discerning investor find opportunities in long-term growth sectors. Secular ...