by John S. on January 19, 2009

Call it a natural instinct or intuition, but do you ever find yourself having a strong feeling one way or the other with current business trends. I am not trying to say that I am psychic or anything like that. However, there are times that I just have a strong feeling about something that often becomes reality. The problem for me is that when I have these feelings, I dont capitalize on them which costs me money. Whether it be money that I could have made on an investment or a loss I could have prevented I never seem to take advantage. I hope to begin changing my habits so that I can capitalize on future trends.

Part of the instincts and feelings that I have are from noticing and observing current business trends. There is a wealth of information available to you each day. Whether it be your local newspaper, the internet, businesses around you, or just ordinary people like your neighbors the information is endless. Next time you are out at the grocery store, stop for a minute and watch what other people are doing. What are they buying? How busy is the store? You might be amazed at what you can learn just by observing other people.

Past Missed Opportunities

Here are 3 examples of business trends that I had a strong feeling about in the past, but decided not to take any action. While there are several more I could cover, these examples highlight ways that I could have capitalized or at least prevented losing money by taking some course of action.

1. Subprime No, I didnt predict the subprime meltdown. However, about 6 or 7 years ago I remember driving to work every morning and hearing a new form of loan package being advertised on the radio. I joked around with friends calling it the loan of the week. At the time, it seemed like there were all of these crazy loan packages available interest only, various ARM packages, and a lot of other strange loans. Each week it seemed like there was something new. I cant tell you the number of times that my wife and I talked about these interest only loans. We both had very good jobs, a modest ranch home with a 30-year traditional mortgage, and lived within our means. Meanwhile, other people we knew who had very little money and questionable credit were purchasing these huge homes. I just couldnt believe what was going on and kept telling my wife that this would be really bad someday and come back to haunt our country. While I didnt think it would have been as bad as it actually has got I still had that bad vibe or feeling that something would eventually happen. Taking action against the future subprime meltdown could have made me a lot of money.

2. Dividend Cuts If you like to invest in high yielding stocks, then you know when a company announces dividend cuts. things dont look to good for the future of the company. Most of the time, this is a sign to shareholders that the financial background of the company is at risk. Often times however, investors choose to ignore the current business trend and stick with the stock myself included. Just last year, I owned a substantial (to me) stake in Wachovia Bank believing that it would be able to turnaround its business and be profitable again someday. When they announced a dividend cut something deep down inside of me had a very bad feeling. However, I choose to ignore that feeling and decided to stick with the stock which ended up costing me thousands of dollars. I ignored my instincts and it cost me.
3. Technology Bubble Back in the dot com frenzy, I was one of those uneducated investors who wanted to throw money at any new idea out there for something that was online. Most of these new start up technology companies were not making any money and were years from turning a profit. Deep down inside of me I couldnt believe that companies that had no history and were years away from making money, had stock prices that were skyrocketing. Unfortunately, the side of me that saw everyone else throwing money at these companies won out. Since everyone else was investing in the dot com companies, it must be the correct thing to do NOT!

Current Business Trends

While I believe it is important to learn from your mistakes and missed opportunities (as I noted above), I have been focusing on identifying new trends that I can capitalize on. Here are a couple of current business trends that I have been noticing. While these are probably not a surprise to you, I think there can be ways to capitalize on these trends.

• Home Businesses I dont know if this is the case everywhere, but I have gotten a ton of fliers recently for home businesses in our area. Some of these businesses include home cleaning services, lawn care services, and personal technology services like computer support. The number of these fliers and advertisements has skyrocketed in the past 6 months. This tells me that people are out of work and are trying to generate extra money. It also tells me that people are interested in saving money and need help doing it. I think now is an excellent time to capitalize on this trend. One could start a business offering personal finance services to people and families trying to stay afloat during these harsh economic times. You could also start up a personal finance blog or write an eBook on how to save money. I believe that frugal living will become mainstream, which is a drastic change from the consumer nation that we once were. Identifying this trend and capitalizing on it could be a profitable opportunity. I plan on taking advantage of this latest trend in the near future.
• Unemployment Unemployment is on the rise and is predicted to keep rising. That means one obvious thing people are out of jobs and need a new one. How can you capitalize on this? I believe that providing services to job seekers such as writing resumes, offering job interview advice, etc. is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on this current business trend. I have identified this trend recently and started writing a series of eHow articles targeting job seekers.
• Babies I dont know what it is (actually I do because I have two young children), but people like to spend money on their kids especially babies. Not that companies that specialize in baby products are immune to a recession, but go into any baby clothing store and take a look. Business seems to still be decent from what I can tell. Finding a way to capitalize on this current business trend could be a way to generate a lot of income. I know my wife and I have thrown around many ideas for starting some sort of business that specializes in babies for many years now. For whatever reason, parents love to spend money on their kids.

What I have noticed is that when you notice a business trend, often times the way to capitalize is by doing the opposite of what other people are doing. Going against mainstream can be a profitable opportunity that other people miss out on. You may question yourself at times on why you are doing the opposite of what others are doing (take the case of the dot com bubble), but in the end you should trust your intuition. I believe that most of the answers in life are very simple and you can pick up on them just by watching what others are doing.

What current business trends have you noticed recently? Are you planning on capitalizing on these trends?