One of the great things about thematic investing is there is no shortage of confirming data points to be had in and our daily lives. For example, with our Connected Society investing theme, we see more people getting more boxes delivered by United Parcel Service (UPS) from Amazon (AMZN) and a several trips to the mall, should you be so inclined, will reveal which retailers are struggling and which are thriving. If you do that you’re also likely to see more people eating at the mall than actually shopping; perhaps a good number of them are simply show rooming in advance of buying from Amazon or a branded apparel company like Nike (NKE) or another that is actively embracing the direct to consumer (D2C) business model.
While it may not be polite to say, the reality is if you look around you will also notice that the domestic population is greying. More specifically, we as a people are living longer lives, and when coupled with the Baby Boomers reaching retirement age, it has a number of implications and ramifications that are a part of our Aging of the Population investing theme.
There are certainly the obvious issues related to this demographic shift, such as whether or not folks have enough saved and invested well enough to support themselves through increasingly longer life spans. And then, of course, there is the need of having access to the right healthcare to deal with any and all issues that one might face. That is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted, given the national shortage of nurses and health care professionals we are currently experiencing, and the reason why one AMN Healthcare Services (AMN) has been on the Tematica Investing Select List in the past.
But our Aging of the Population theme doesn’t stop there. Again, much like looking around at what people are doing at the mall, all one has to do is sit back and assess the day-to-day life of a typical octogenarian and see that we are seeing:
