Are you worried about growing volatility in 2017? Wondering which companies will benefit if tax reform happens? Struggling to figure out an infrastructure play for your portfolio?
Now could be a good time to look up from those near-term issues and consider how a bigger-picture, future-oriented outlook might benefit your portfolio. Consider how innovation is transforming industries and creating new ones—and the ways investors can tap into those themes.
“No sector is safe from innovation,” says Catherine D. Wood, founder and chief executive officer of ARK. At ARK, analysts focus on the ways in which technologically enabled innovation will potentially intersect every aspect of business life, Wood says.
Intersect—and likely improve it, she adds.
“These innovation platforms are going to potentially change the way the world works and, we do believe, make the world a better place.”
For investors eager to allocate a portion of their portfolio to harness these long-term trends, consider the following five innovation themes:
Robotics and Automation
Many people fear that developments in the fields of robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to massive job losses, but ARK sees things differently. While a recent study from Oxford University found that robotics and AI will decimate almost half of all U.S. jobs over the next 20 years, analysts at ARK are focused on how technology and innovation platforms like robotics, automation, and AI should increase productivity dramatically.
Developments in those areas could produce new products and services “that we can’t even imagine right now,” Wood says. Those developments, in turn, represent a source of significant employment growth. ARK analysts estimate that by 2035, that productivity boom will create an additional $12 trillion in U.S. GDP, over and above the $26 trillion to $28 trillion currently predicted for that year.