Although I presume that being a child in any era is an experience where one's imagination and creativity are stimulated by the environment in a special way, for someone growing up in the 1970s and 1980s the emphasis was very much on the rapid advance of technology in the wake of the space race.
The conventional wisdom at the time was that by the year 2000 a proportion of us could be living in special eco bubbles on the moon, and all our homes would be run by what is now known as the Internet of things.
In addition, many of the jobs and careers that we are familiar with now such as lawyers or bankers would be redundant in this futuristic scenario.
Alas, especially in the case of lawyers or bankers, this has not yet come to pass. We are arguably around 20 years behind on many of the predictions of the mid 20th century. This is even though such a scenario of a world without our “friends” the legal eagles, was predicted in Back To The Future 2 to have happened by 2015.
However, I have been made aware lately of the concept of the smart contract in an interview I conducted between blockchain investor, Coinsilium, and RSK Labs, who have developed the technology which is supposed to be “unhackable”.
It is a form of technology which means that once the identity two parties is confirmed. almost any type of agreement can be made between them instantly, without the need for extended corroboration and document swapping. There is also the bonus that in matters of compensation, like insurance claims one would not be waiting around for years to get a payout – it could now happen instantly.
In essence, it is a disruptive technology, one of the biggest themes for investors as we approach the 2020s, and perhaps the largest remaining virgin territory for the new economy.
Another eye-opener with which I became familiar with over the course of this week was the idea of a growth company which ticks all the boxes in terms of being a value investment as well. From my definition, and perhaps most people, a value investment will have a P/E ratio under 10, and will be paying a dividend of more than 3%. It will have decent margins and perhaps most of all will have the prospect of scalable growth.
Such situations do not by definition grow on trees. But an interview I did this week with MTI Wireless (LON:MWE), the antenna to water solutions company listed on AIM, may be the exception which proves the rule that you cannot find companies which tick both value and growth boxes.
Particularly outstanding here was the way that the management appear to be experienced, help along by margins approaching the 40% for a company which has a specialist niche in two different but complementary areas.
Finally, I rarely blow my own trumpet as far as charting calls are concerned. Firstly, I think it is in bad taste, and second, there are always the ones that got away, or go awry, that internet trolls are only too happy to remind us of. But there are a couple of reasons for mentioning Myanmar social media specialist Mysquar (LON:MYSQ).
The first is the way that I have not actually been entirely convinced that the good people of the country formerly known as Burma would not just use the global giants such as Facebook instead of Mysquar. The second is that the reason for the technical recommendation – a broadening triangle reversal is a relatively unusual one. The fact that it worked and the stock more than doubled in a week is consoling to say the very least.