Codywillard

When you're looking at long-term, revolutionary-type investments, you're obviously trying to find markets and companies that are growing quickly with huge potential in front of them. There are two types of growth, secular and cyclical. Cyclical growth happens when a company and/or a market see upside along with the broader economic cycle. Energy companies, metals markets, chemicals, housing and many commodities fall into this type of category. That is, when times are good, so too will their businesses likely be good and when times are bad, all the boats sink together. Secular growth, on the other hand, happens when a nascent industry is taking off, about to grow into revolutionary proportions as it displaces old business models and technologies. Two factors contribute to secularly growing industries -- they create entirely new demand and they steal demand from other industries. Netflix, YouTube and other web/app video sites, for example, are contributing to more people consuming more video than ever before.