How to Protect Yourself -- and Profit -- from Higher Grocery Prices

How to Protect Yourself -- and Profit -- from Higher Grocery Prices:
“Slingshot Economics” Can Help You Beat Check-Out Shock at the Supermarket
A Taipan Publishing Group Strategy Report
By Irwin Greenstein, Senior Research Analyst, Taipan Publishing Group

When it comes to putting food on the table, nothing feels more frightening these days than watching the prices at the grocery check out. The price you pay to feed your family continues to set painful highs.

Groceries cost you 5.9% more than this time last year. Chicken is up 10%, milk bolted 25%, bread jacked up 16% and eggs hit a 35% increase.

And you can expect it to get worse through next year due to the flooding of prime Midwest farmland. Damaged corn and soybean crops across Iowa, Illinois and other ravaged states are driving up prices that were already at all-time highs.

The crop devastation impacts both the prices you pay for vegetables and meat. Cash crops such as corn are used for livestock feed, and the shortages are passed along to the consumers for beef, chicken and pork. For example, nearly 50% of the 2007 corn crop was fed to livestock.

But with this bad news, there’s also good news… a way you can beat sticker shock at the grocery checkout and protect yourself – even profit – from today’s higher grocery prices.

How to Protect Yourself – and Profit – from Higher Grocery Prices with Slingshot Economics

It’s an investment strategy we call “Slingshot Economics” – a new approach helps you find investment opportunities with the potential to rise much faster than the price of food.

Like a slingshot, these investment alternatives move fast and can hit the mark. By most standards, they are unconventional. Still, the acceleration with which they can move has created an entire new class of billionaires around the world.

Yet slingshot economics remains off the radar of most Americans. Take a look at this chart…

As you can see, while the price of food and other inflationary pressures erode America’s wealth, a new breed of billionaires is on the rise in emerging markets. This is Slingshot Economics at work in the real world.

Slingshot Economics applies to emerging-market economies that move with the speed of a slingshot -- providing a potential killing for people who are sick and tired of their investment rut.

How to Protect Yourself – and Profit – from Higher Grocery Prices: A Breeding Ground for Billionaires

This idea is so incredibly powerful that in 2008, for the first time in history, Slingshot Economics has created more billionaires outside the U.S. than within our very own borders.

Forbes reported the number of billionaires in emerging markets reached 37% of the total in 2008 compared with 32% who are American.

Emerging markets is a term used for developing countries undergoing economic and political reform. Outside capital takes notice and begins to invest. Confidence builds both domestically and internationally in the economy. Workers start earning enough money to become real consumers. The stock market soars. Seemingly overnight, a whirlwind of growth creates new billionaires.

How to Protect Yourself – and Profit – from Higher Grocery Prices with Slingshot Economics on Wall Street

Wall Street has taken notice of emerging economies.

In a classic case of Slingshot Economics, emerging-market private equity soared in 2007, with 204 funds raising $59 billion in new capital -- 78% more than the $33 billion raised in 2006. The Emerging Markets Private Equity Association said fundraising dedicated to the emerging markets over the last three years has totaled more than $118 billion, versus only $13 billion in the three years prior.

Fund sizes in 2007 also shattered records. A $4-billion Asian fund was oversubscribed. Nineteen funds raised $1 billion or more as of December 2007, compared to only four that achieved the same milestone in 2006. Among them were a $2.1-billion fund for Central Europe, in addition to $1-billion-plus funds for Brazil, China, and India. Average emerging-market fund sizes also increased sharply -- averaging $426 million in 2007 compared with $272 million in 2006.

How to Protect Yourself – and Profit – from Higher Grocery Prices: Strong National Balance Sheets

Investment bank Credit Suisse reports that commodities account for 41% emerging market earnings in 2006. This helped emerging market countries slash debt and strengthen national balance sheets -- the complete opposite of the U.S., which is saddled with the largest debt in history.

Today, emerging economies enjoy half of global GDP growth. Their exports are 45% of the world total. They consume over half of the world's energy and have accounted for four-fifths of the surge in oil consumption in the past five years.

The huge potential of emerging economies is most apparent in their stock markets. Since 2003, the Morgan Stanley Capital International emerging-market index has jumped more than 400% compared with an increase of only 70% in the U.S. S&P 500.

How to Protect Yourself – and Profit – from Higher Grocery Prices: A New Economic Landscape

At an economic summit in London on September 24, 2007, Mr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, told an audience: “Emerging markets are at the centre of the new world economic landscape. Their rising economic clout and political power have global implications, particularly where trade and investment are concerned. Business and government leaders are beginning to reconsider conventional wisdom and develop strategies and policies to address the new challenges.”

Now that these emerging economies are financially independent, their goals are to become the next economic powerhouses. And following the model of Slingshot Economics, it’s going to happen lightning fast.

The thought of America’s slipping economic power may make you uncomfortable. And maybe it should. But the hard reality is that you MUST protect yourself.

With the dollar plunging, billions are rushing into emerging markets. As you can see investors who followed our advice easily pocketed double-digit gains in emerging markets... and we’re just getting started.

How to Protect Yourself – and Profit – from Higher Grocery Prices: For the Past Five Years, Emerging Markets Soared

Emerging markets are on fire. During the last five years, the S&P 500 has delivered 27% total gains. If you had invested $50,000 in the S&P 500 back in 2003, you’d now have about $63,500. Now look at some of the hottest emerging markets…

The planet holds a finite amount of resources -- and they are getting exhausted. We are now in a logarithmic growth phase of the world ’s population: it took 130 years for the world population to double from 1 billion to 2 billion, yet in this century it will double again in a mere 60 years.

Higher standards of living in former Third-World nations add stress on the world’s resources. Demand for fuel, building materials and food will stay ahead of supply.

Commodity prices in turn will continue to soar -- as these nations become more self-sufficient.

If you believe your financial future is in jeopardy, the only logical move you can make is emerging markets.

Emerging markets are a flat-out breeding ground for billionaires. They are one of the very few places where an individual can start with a relatively small bankroll and actually become a millionaire. This is Slingshot Economics at work… and how you can protect yourself -- and profit -- from higher grocery prices.

Originally published July 2, 2008.

Copyright 2007-2008, The Taipan Publishing Group and Taipan Daily, 808 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21202. All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or placed on any electronic medium without written permission from the publisher. Information contained herein is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed.

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