They stay in place for a long time, so this isn't going to be a monthly thread.

You're free to post any long term tendencies that the markets may exhibit.

Manufacturing is dying. The same will happen what happened to agriculture once did. It will die and it will stay dead.

We are in the middle of a transition that's comparable to what happened in the depression. In the depression what happened is that agriculture died. So, you know the third of the U.S. population that was on the farms had their income fall 80 percent.

it's going away for the same reason that agriculture went away, which is productivity growth is 5-7 percent and demand growth is like 2-3 percent. And so employment is going away, value added is going away. And you see that going on. What that means is that everybody's trying to save those sectors. Everybody's trying to export. You have these huge imbalances where the Germans who can control the appreciation of the market now that they're part of the Euro, where the Japanese who control their currency, where the Chinese who control their currencies. Where they all basically maintain their currencies to maintain exports are exerting extraordinary deflationary pressure on the world. That's the bad news, and that's not going away. Nobody is talking about getting rid of manufacturing sectors. On the other hand there's a good news side to this; everything is going to services.

Source: Interview with Bruce Greenwald

There is talk of automation and robots taking human jobs. The trend, indeed, supports this view.

50% unemployment that could result from this is generally seen as a bad thing, so people are trying to come up with solutions to the 'problem'.

One of them is taxation of robots. This can be done quite easy could put a rein on the trend. Because of this solution alone, it is unlikely that this trend could lead to a recession. It's just the system that we have now with both the companies and the government being able to make more money. The government has the power to prevent jobs from being lost and/or produce more jobs with the tax it gets from the robots.

In conclusion, robotisation is a trend, but it won't happen overnight. There won't be any catastrophe from this account.

There's talk of a new trend forming: Societal responsible investing.

Mostly, this is environment-friendly companies, but other 'good' companies apply, also. If this trend materializes, you might want to consider investing in the light side instead of the dark side (oil, chemicals, coal, tobacco, etc.).

In the year 2025 electric cars will catch up to the regular ones prices wise. 4-10% of all cars will be electric cars. From then on, the electric cars will only spread more, making oil less relevant. On the long term, the price of oil will drop and the countries that export it will suffer.

The USA spends 17 % for pharmacy while the rest of the world spends bellow 10 % in average. It seems that a pharmacy bubble is forming. It might take a while before it bursts, though. The aged population is increasing at a rapid rate and pharmacy loves old people.

This is now the 2nd longest bull market in modern history. That means the easy money has already been made and valuations are near fully engorged. Gladly, there is not much fear of a bear market either.

When you add it all up it says the bull market is still on. Just that the pace of gains for the broader market is slowing down to around 5% per year....10% if we are lucky.

Source: Zacks

The selling of cannabis in USA is worth $5 billion per year. It's estimated that in 10 years, this number will be $50 billion. It's very hard to catch an industry in its infancy. Here's your opportunity to do just that and get filthy rich while you do.

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It's also possible for it to get banned again in the next four years, though.

5981481 with Trump at the helm, that is, indeed, a possibility.

•Driverless cars didn't even exist a few short years ago. By 2025, experts forecast the technology will create a $42 billion industry.
•There will soon be 10 times more Internet of Things-connected devices than cell phones.
•Artificial intelligence is still in its very early stages of growth. Demand for AI tech is predicted to explode 588% in the next 3 years.
•Global internet traffic has quintupled over the past 5 years - and it's expected to double again in the next 2 years. Data centers are investing hundreds of billions to keep up.
Source: Zacks

Here are the trends, however, you'll have to find ways to capitalize on them yourself.