HOW MY CURIOSITY ABOUT 3 SMARTPHONE APPS GOT ME A TRIPLE-DIGIT GROWTH STOCK

This is a story about how my effervescent curiosity led me to a little-known small company that may become the IBM of mobile application software in as little as five years.

Before i pick the stock of a company as a long-term investment i always do some fundamental research.

Sometimes, however, i go with my gut instinct first. I do this when the company I'm investigating is in an industry i perceive to be "futuristic" and highly growth-oriented.

This gut feeling got me into the stock of Chinese mobile security firm NQ Mobile Inc. (NQ), already up 66% year-to-date (YTD) as of closing yesterday.

There's no doubt that the future is mobile.

Therefore, for the past year i was already on the prowl for a stock to ride this hot global trend of mobile consumption like a horse whisperer. I didn't think it would be Microsoft (MSFT), which i dumped two months ago.

One day in October 2012 i noticed an in-app cross-selling ad linked three of the apps i used the most on my android phone. This aroused my curiosity so i dug deeper.

Boom! Lo and behold, the three apps - NQ Mobile Security, NQ Mobile Vault, and NQ Android Booster - were made by the same developer.

Wow, i reasoned, since these three apps did what they were supposed to do excellently, their developer must have an ace up its sleeve.

I quickly googled NQ and read EVERYTHING i could find on the company. I was even tempted to call China or a Chinese friend to ask about the company.

Luckily at the time, NQ was just over a year old as a publicly-listed company and was trading well below its IPO price. I thought that was weird because all my research indicated this young company was going places in an industry that was exploding.

I jumped into the stock without delay and now this small-cap tech company is 6% of my portfolio and already my biggest percentage gainer YTD.

I suspect NQ Mobile will eventually become the IBM of mobile security or it will be snapped up in the not-so-distant future.

Fellow stockmarket investors, you don't need your commissioned stockbroker to pick stocks.

Just tune in to changes around you and around the world. Then pick companies you believe are best positioned to exploit these changes going forward.

With a little intuition you can find a gem in the rarest of places.

6 HOT Global Trends You Should Invest In Now: MOBILE CONSUMPTION (1)

 Mobility is the new normal.

Although sustainable mobile consumption in the future may happen on other devices like wrist watches, smartphones are going to be with us probably till the Martians invade.

Whether in Africa or America, people increasingly want to run their lives on the go, and this is driving an explosive growth of the smartphone, first introduced by Finnish company Nokia (NOK) in 1996.

There are many ways to board this money train.

The most straightforward way is to invest in companies that make the actual handsets - companies like Apple (AAPL), Samsung, Blackberry (BBRY), HTC, Nokia (NOK), etc. However, when it comes to technology investing, i prefer "software" stocks.

If you're also biased towards software, then the smart way to play this trend is to zoom in on companies that make software components for the handset makers. These components typically tackle the three crucial aspects of mobile consumption: Privacy, Security, and Productivity.

Productivity probably determines the buying decisions of most smartphone users. Therefore, in this space you can consider Israeli company LivePerson (LPSN). They make engagements like chat, click-to-call, and email easy on smartphones, so they're big on productivity. So is Nuance Communications (NUAN), the company behind the speech recognition technologies in Apple (SIRI) and Samsung phones. I'm long Nuance.

Productivity and privacy are important but i think the sweet-spot of mobile consumption is security. You may not want to chat with Whatsapp or may feel uncomfortable with mobile banking, but would you want to take a chance with malware squatting on your phone?

That's why I'm also long Chinese firm NQ Mobile Inc. (NQ). NQ is primarily a mobile security firm, but as it turns out, also provides privacy and productivity services in over 100 countries worldwide. This company, which identifies and neutralizes over 75% of all global malware threats before any other company in the world, is adding 400,000 new customers a day. It's currently trading below its 200-day moving average, so this is a good time to long the stock. I expect NQ to ride this wave of exploding mobile consumption high.

This is the first in a series of posts that examine six hot global trends you should invest in now. In the next blog, i examine the hot trend of Aging  Population.