Well here is a quick mental exercise. I am going to think about, and share with you, my thoughts about investment money.

Well the main areas of investment I see are:

• Real Estate (Commercial and Residential Property)(I am not counting owner occupied housing because that is not primarily an investment.)
• Securities (Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Futures)
• Private Equity (Direct investment in private companies)
• Metals and Jewels (Large amounts of money are kept in Gold, Silver and other precious metals)
• Cash (Yes many people keep money in cash, CD’s and deposit accounts.)
• International Investing (All of these areas but outside of the US)

Now, because the total amount of money is VERY QUICKLY increasing, the actual value of a dollar must be going down. This is evident by looking at the price of the dollar verses most any investment. You could have invested in most any are for the last 5 years and had a positive outcome vs. the dollar. Over 90% of this money is owned by less than 3% of the population. The total size of all of this investment money is well in excess of 70 TRILLION dollars. That is more money than most people can even imagine.

One important concept that I have noticed is the fact that money shushes around, from one investment type to another. In the late 1990’s the stock market was all the rage, and most other areas of investment were growing slower than normal, most investment money went there so the values went sky high. Then the hype popped in 2000-2001, and people started taking their money out of stocks, the people who left early took most of the profits.

From 2002 until 2006 the hype was all about Real Estate, as a whole the US made over 6 TRILLION dollars investing in real estate. That is about $40,000 for EVERY adult in the United States, and this number does NOT count the house you live in, only investment properties. By the start of 2007 people made a ton of money and started to see an end to the run-up in prices of Real Estate, so they started cashing out. Again the people who did it first made the most money.

Now this money STILL is out there. Where is it going? The easiest way to find this out is to look at what is going up in value. Metals is one huge area that has seem price spikes from 2007 until now. Another area is Private Equity. Most people who made this huge money qualify to invest in Private Equity and they have done so. They have brought companies private, they have started new companies.

Another area that has seen a huge increase in investment is the INTERNATIONAL segment. New cities are being built all over the world. The rate of investment in much of the world is on record pace.

Because of the vast size of stocks, and the fond memories many investors have, much of the money has returned to stock market. But many people who made a ton of money in Real Estate are looking to return to that market also.

So where should you invest??? The key is to move into the segment first and leave first, but it is hard to predict what will happen. For example I think metals were HOT but they are now near the top, and as we have seen when this happens there often is a fall. A lot of money has gone back to the stock market and more will follow, so there will still be a few years to make money in that area. Real Estate has taken a huge hit but should come up later, the returns will not be huge but at least there will be returns. So the two areas I see, where I would invest my money is in Private Equity and in International. In much of the world the Real Estate boom is just starting.

The best thing would be to start a company in a fast growing nation, and take advantage of the growth. This is hard so the next best thing would be to invest, using Private Equity, in a US company that does a good deal of business internationally.

When we stated Capital Active, this is exactly what we thought about, the fact that there is a huge amount of Capital out there, and that it needs to be kept moving around, kept active doing different things at different times.

Tell me what you think, please leave a comment to this blog, tell me if you agree or disagree.