3 Incredible Tips About Investing for the Future From a Great Investor

3 Incredible Tips About Investing for the Future From a Great Investor July 31, 2016 Dear fellow Fool, Here's one great investing truth: If you have a strong ability to predict the future, your returns can be phenomenal. We're talking "mansion on the hill overlooking the ocean" kind of phenomenal. Of course, people can't know for certain what the future holds, but some investors have made a few exceptional educated guesses, and capitalized on these picks. Today I'm introducing you to the best investor I know. His three great investing tips might set off light bulbs in your head. Read through these few short paragraphs, and I'm confident you'll take something away that will help you be better equipped to invest in the future. Why this is critical for your portfolio Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner has compiled one of the greatest, verifiable, long-term track records you'll see in the investing world. His average stock pick in Motley Fool Stock Advisor is up 275.6% since the service began nearly 14 years ago. That beats the market's returns by more than 4-to-1! In a recent podcast interview, David talked extensively about how he views the future, and how he positions himself to make money from it. One quick note before we get to David's tips: Knowing how to invest in the things people will use in future can be critical for your portfolio these days because of how fast technology is changing. It seems harder now for us to imagine what the next five years will bring than it did for our grandparents to predict 50 years out! Who knows what technology will bring by 2026? As you can imagine, this can be a challenge for investors. 3 ways to see the future With that in mind, here are three great investing tips and insights about the future I gleaned from David's interview: 1. Think people, not products Because it's now so hard to see even a few short years into the future, David suggests we go beyond trying to guess which products and gadgets will be big hits. Instead, he says, "Ask yourself 'Who are the people that I want to be invested in?'" As the saying goes, the best way to predict the future is to invent the future. And so David has invested in the great visionaries of our time... people who are truly creating the future. Some of his legendary picks in Motley Fool Stock Advisor came from this strategy: Reed Hastings of Netflix and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, to name two. David has recommended these stocks to his members more than once. Here are the returns of his earliest continuously held Netflix and Amazon picks: David Gardner's Stock Advisor returns for: Netflix +3,794.7 Amazon.com +4,729.6 2. Get invested in these three trends "The Internet, virtual reality, and biotech/genomics are three really important trends of our time. History will look back and say, 'This was the era.'" If you have no money in these three trends, you might want to consider putting a portion of the growth part of your portfolio in them. "The Internet" includes the ever-popular Internet of Things, or IoT. David says we're moving toward a time when he thinks just about anything of consequence will have a chip in it, even if just for tracking and data purposes... even something as common and low-tech as your kitchen table. Don't think you need to identify a single pure-play company in any of these areas. It could be as simple as realizing that a favorite retailer will be selling massive amounts of virtual reality products or things with chips in them. 3. Virtual reality is REAL "We are really just at the dawn of virtual reality. It's such a profound and important technology, it will be ubiquitous 50 years from now." This may be harder to grasp for the vast majority of people who haven't yet put on a VR headset... but how often do we see the birth of a new medium? For many people, the most important new medium in their lifetime was the Internet. Those a little older perhaps saw the birth of television. David believes virtual reality could do things as disruptive as replacing our universities... as students "attend" classes through their headsets. Or, allow you to see a grandchild who's taking her first steps 1,000 miles away -- and feeling like you're in the same room! Again, it's hard to know what will happen beyond just the next five years, but David is betting VR - in whatever unimaginable form - will play a huge role over the next few decades. Future gold As I mentioned earlier, David's recommendations and outstanding returns have greatly helped members who followed along in Motley Fool Stock Advisor. And this is the only newsletter service that features both David and his brother, Tom, side by side, aimed at enriching their members with two stock picks each month. Because it's impossible to predict the future, you might need to rely on investors like them helping you find your way through the next several years. If you're interested in trying out the service - at no obligation - just click the link below. [Click here for your 30-day, no-obligation look at David and Tom's stock picks] Until next week, Fool on, Rex Moore P.S. I mentioned the importance of virtual reality above. Our top tech expert recently compiled his years of research and insights on VR into a special report called [The Motley Fool's Ultimate Virtual Reality Playbook]. In it you'll discover the 4 stocks he believes will explode when VR takes off. [Click here for more information.] --------------------------------------------------------------- Having trouble seeing this email? [View on Web] We work fervently, feverishly, and Foolishly to make sure all the facts and figures we publish in our emails are 100% accurate and up to date. All returns as of July 27, 2016. David Gardner owns shares of Amazon.com and Netflix. Tom Gardner owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com and Netflix. To ensure you receive the latest and greatest from us, add Fool@foolsubs.com to your address book. Don't want any more emails? No problem... [unsubscribe now], or change your email preferences [here]. This is a promotional message from The Motley Fool | 2000 Duke St. | Alexandria, VA 22314 Copyright ©1995-2016 The Motley Fool. All rights reserved. [Legal Information].