People ask too often what the next big thing is. Sometimes the next big thing is the last big thing. Some trends last a lot longer than anyone could expect or comprehend. This is why, sometimes momentum investing could be considered a contrarian approach. Staying with a powerful trend is psychologically more difficult than staying on the sidelines or shorting. Stocks like $TSLA and $PCLN are recent examples of that notion.
Financial markets are often forward-looking. Sometimes, they will go way ahead of themselves and discount a future that seems unattainable at the moment.
In the late 90s, people thought that the Internet will change everything we do. Those people were right. It just took a lot longer that most expected. In between the perception and the reality, there were two deep recessions that bankrupted a lot of companies and obliterated a lot of dreams. Those businesses that survived, thrived and brought substantial wealth to their shareholders. The stocks of those companies spent a lot of time on the 52-week high list.
Sometimes, financial markets will discount a future that will never happen, but the money that could be made while the whole discounting process lasts, is real.
