Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of November 29, 2011?

Article Excerpt

Theme investing has wide investment appeal, simply because the association with a particular investment theme seems to make profit easier to come by, if not inevitable. For instance, when the Internet theme hit the markets in the late 1990s, many investors flooded into Internet-related stocks. However, many of these investors, if not a majority, wound up losing money. They were right in assuming that the Internet would change the world, but they were wrong in assuming that all Internet-related stocks would gain. They made the most basic investment mistake of them all: neglecting to insist on investment quality. In recent years, many investors have asked about investments that can tap into the theme of the growing need for clean water in a global economy. A number of companies qualify as potential water investments. But many labour under major drawbacks such as a need to deal with troublesome and corrupt bureaucracies in countries most in need of clean water, a lack…