When Roger Conrad, Elliott Gue, Yiannis Mostrous and I came up with the idea for our Portfolio 2020 and this free e-letter, our goal was to create a service that not only positioned investors to profit from the ineluctable megatrends that are transforming the 21st Century but also put into context the necessity for investors to buy into innovation. These products aim to be your guide innovation investing.

You see, we’re no longer able to simply buy stocks blindly; you have to know what you’re buying and why you’re buying it. The market is a cruel place for sloppy investors. It’s hard enough if you’re calculating.

Our strategy is to find both large and small companies that are worth your investment dollars for the long haul. Some pay dividends that help you get paid while they grow and develop. Some are big-cap stocks that have revamped their business plans to compete in global marketplace where corporations can’t simply play by their own rules and the old ways of building a global business. And some are small companies that have a shot at the big time or are prime takeover targets in niche sectors.

2020 Investing is designed to complement this strategy by discussing the megatrends that are underway and will continue to develop for decades to come. We want you to have a clear understanding of what is happening so you can have a better idea of how to profit.

If we’re talking about RNAi drug delivery companies or Smart Grid firms, you have the back stories on what they are, why they’re important, how they’re going to affect the status quo and which companies are changing the game.

We’re not giving away the store in a free e-zine, but this service isn’t simply a teaser for a paid product; it’s meant to be used by subscribers to help them gain a deeper understanding in the innovators we feature in our articles.

For example, later this week our resident ETF expert Benjamin Shepherd has contributed an article focusing on the global financial ETFs. The play here is on the burgeoning middle classes in Asia, particularly China and India, as well as the recovery of the US financial sector:

In a 2005 speech to the Virginia Association of Economics, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke coined the term ‘global savings glut’ to describe the phenomenon of rising national current account surpluses in both industrialized and emerging economies, with many nations opting to keep reserves on the books rather than invest them. While the US and its citizens can hardly be described as thrifty, most other global citizens have exhibited a propensity to put excess earnings aside for a rainy day or to ensure a more comfortable retirement.

That propensity to sock money away in a mattress was for a long time problematic, slowing investment and hampering growth in many parts of the world. It also created a huge reliance on foreign investment to develop local markets.

Those attitudes are shifting though with data from supra-national organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showing that the savings rates in many nations remain on the ascendency and a growing portion of that money is finding its way into productive investments rather than mattresses.

That phenomenon is made particularly clear in the rise of the sovereign wealth fund, an investment vehicle which many global governments have embraced to deploy their excess currency reserves. Rather than leaving current account surpluses simply sitting on a ledger sheet, those funds are increasingly being deployed in both international investment and domestic development while acting as a buffer against tough economic circumstances.

That effect is also being translated on the consumer side as savings are increasingly being deposits into a growing plethora of international banking institutions as well as mutual funds and other investment vehicles.

Next week I’ll be writing an article on cybersecurity–one of the greatest government, military, consumer and industrial challenges facing the world for decades to come. Although many people are still talking about revitalizing infrastructures to better compete in the 21st Century, the conversation is just beginning about developing robust cybersecurity systems.

And if you don’t have secure systems, a new power grid, airport or power plant is only as productive as its network is secure. Ben Iannotta, the editor of the military journal C4ISR observed in his recent column, “If the alleged Times Square bomber were a computer software genius, he might have figured out how to hack into the financial system instead of traveling to Pakistan to learn how to make a second-rate car bomb.”

And this game of attack, counterattack is played at lightning speed every day. One small defense company I’ve been writing about is an up-and-comer in the military cybersecurity space and just landed an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (the best kind of contract in the contracting world) Global Battle staff and Program Support contract from the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.

This is a serious growth sector. And unlike infrastructure plays, this is software, hardware and systems work that has high premiums attached to it. It’s not laying rail lines, building nukes or making second generation solar panels. It’s going to be fast growth for well-positioned companies in the private and public sectors.