“Don’t go there. You’ll probably get killed.”
That’s what my table of colleagues told me in Medellín, Colombia several years ago.
We were sitting on the patio of a popular expatriate (ex-pat) bar in the swanky Parque Lleras district of the city. Surrounded by hotels, this was where all the foreigners working in Colombia came to hang out on Friday night.
The problem was, it’s kind of a boring place. The spot where we were sitting was a mock Irish pub, filled with people in suits speaking English. Not exactly a Colombian cultural experience.
I wanted to see the real side of Medellín. By all accounts, the city boasts a rich culture. It’s home to famous painters like Botero, and hosts beautiful architecture and boisterous nightlife.
I suggested to the group we should venture out of the Irish pub, to the downtown neighborhood, Centro. It was supposedly a lot more local, and a lot more fun.
None of my colleagues had ever been there. None of them wanted to go. Like almost all ex-pats – anywhere in the world – they were happy to stay in their little bubble where everyone spoke English and every tap poured Budweiser.
Ex-pats usually justify this insular behaviour by claiming the local parts of a city are dangerous. It’s true there are spots you don’t want to go – in any city. Los Angeles has parts you wouldn’t go to. But no one suggests you should just stay in Malibu because of that fact.
I left my friends that night and went to Centro on my own. It was one of the most enjoyable and memorable evenings I’ve had.
The More, the Merrier
The spot was great. Locals sat in tiny bars, dotted all along the streets. The music and the talk were lively – and none of it was in English.
I ended up taking a seat in a bar that turned out to be closed to the public for a wedding party. Unknowingly, I’d stepped over the chain put up to keep the public out.
When the waitress told me what was happening, I stood to leave. But before I could, the bride’s family spotted me – and waved me over.
They invited me to join the party. Everyone was pretty far into the wine at that point, so it was “the more, the merrier.”
We ate, drank, and danced into the night. I got to enjoy a Colombian wedding – even without knowing anyone involved.
My adventurous night in Medellín wasn’t a one-off. Around the world, I’ve always tried to go off the beaten track in cities I’ve visited, resulting in some unbelievable experiences.
The thing is, this exploring wasn’t hard to do. These places are easy enough to get to. They’re not dangerous or even unnerving. They’re just off the beaten track.
I believe that cultivating that sense of exploration – of adventure – is key to living a rich life. Over my 20 years of investing, I’ve also come to realize it’s critical to creating real wealth.
Most people just never bother finding something new. They’re content to sit in the metaphorical Irish bar, seeing the same people and the same things week after week, year after year.
That’s fine enough. But it can be a real problem in certain times.
I think investing today is one of those situations.
It Pays to Be an “Investment Explorer”
We all know that the old ways of growing our money just aren’t what they used to be. For decades, you could make good money from dividends on blue-chip stocks. It was a safe place to park your savings, and you got paid 5%, even 10% at times, in terms of dividend yield.
But today, the dividend yield on the S&P 500 has shrunk to a paltry 1.5%. The earnings from that barely pay for anything. It’s certainly not enough to live off of – especially as inflation picks up, and the cost of living soars.
Or what about bonds? At the depths of the crisis last year, yields on the 10-year government bond were just 0.5%. It’s insane to think you get less than $5 on every $1,000 in return for locking up your cash for a decade.
But here’s the really unbelievable thing: people today keep buying stocks and bonds. Like my friends in the Irish bar, they’re content to sit in the same old place, even when they know something’s not right – and that things could be much better somewhere else.
How to Invest Outside the Beaten Track
The thing is, to find that “somewhere else” in the investment world, you have to go exploring. That’s daunting – even downright scary.
But that’s why I’ve devoted my career to bringing you these ideas in my advisories… so you don’t have to venture off the beaten track on your own.
And if exploring the world taught me anything, it’s that there’s always new, worthwhile opportunities to be found…
If you look hard enough.
That’s the spirit I’ve tried to bring to all of my investment advisories. In 2019, when no one was watching gold, readers of my International Speculator advisory loaded up on precious metals stocks.
Those soared in the big gold run last summer. Some went up hundreds of percent in weeks.
Then, while everyone was piling into gold stocks – at what turned out to be a market top – I started looking for other spots the mainstream investors were missing.
I alerted my readers to a vanadium and rare earth metals play – both commodities no one was talking about. It went up as much as 323% in less than five months.
The big question is, what’s the next thing?
The New Frontier in Investing
This new frontier in investing is going to make us a lot of money.
I’ve never been so confident in an investing strategy in my entire life.
Why? Because I’ve proven it over and over in my Strategic Trader advisory.
Some of my early plays in this new space have already delivered the most explosive gains of my career for readers..
Like a stellar 4,942% jump in less than two years – enough to turn every $1,000 invested into nearly $50,000.
That’s not a one-off. Another play in this new space I’ve discovered recently gave my readers 2,805% returns.
Several other of these unique investments are up hundreds of percent. It’s quite simply one of the biggest…fastest… and most reliable ways to grow your money.
The best part? It’s nothing complicated… it doesn’t require hours of learning a new investing skill. It’s not crypto, or even stock options. These ultra-high-return investments are simple, stock-like investments you can buy by entering a simple ticker symbol into almost any brokerage account – even discount ones.
Just like I loved showing people the restaurants I discovered in my explorations, I’m over the moon to share this life-changing financial discovery with new investors. The kind of people looking for something different… that could supercharge their returns and change their lives forever…
Keep walking the path,
David Forest
Editor, Strategic Trader