How to Invest $5,000 for a Tidy Profit

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If you have just $5,000 to invest, is it possible to turn a profit within the year? Assuming you could garner a 10 percent return on your investment, that would mean an additional $500 bucks in your pocket 12 months from now. There’s an entire type of investing that seeks these one-shot plays with chunks of money ranging from $1,000 to $100,000.

You may have heard of spot players, one-trick investors, or one-steppers. There are dozens of names for these unusual, single-minded investors but many of them purchase a single stock, commodity, precious metal, crypto-currency or other asset and hold it for just one year. After that, they choose another target, aim carefully and go for a handsome profit. What are the spot players setting their sights on right now? Here’s what you’ll discover if you spend time reading their blogs, websites and latest books:

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What’s Hot and What’s Not?

All things tech, crypto-currency and gold related are among the hottest single-play investments for millions of one-shot enthusiasts. If you have an iron stomach, you might consider plunking five grand into a crypto-currency like Bitcoin, or not. The big tech stocks get a lot of attention on blogs where spot players offer their inside opinions on all things market-related. But in addition to crypto and tech, one of the other big stars for 2020 among the spot-play crowd is gold. It seems that a large number of these non-traditional investors believe that the major indices are set for a fall. If that happens, so the logic goes, gold will shoot up well above the $2,000 mark.

Stocks to Watch

Spot investors are putting lots of money into the cannabis market. They believe the stocks to watch for the upcoming year will be in this new sector. The challenge is finding just one security to choose among the many in the fast-growing industry. One school of thought is to choose among the two or three cannabis firms with the largest market capitalization.

Unusual Metals

Every decade or so, someone touts the advantages of investing in rhodium. The precious metal is almost unknown, even among bullion dealers, but has a very small, devoted following for an odd reason. In 2008, the price of rhodium shot up to about $10,000 per ounce for a brief period. Many people were overnight rhodium millionaires, and a new community was born. Today, the per-ounce price of rhodium is around $3,500 and many experts in the auto industry, which uses the metal in catalytic convertors, say it’s set for a big increase. So, if you are a one-shot investor, rhodium might be the ideal way to make that big kill.

Oil

There are many ways to get into the oil market. Leases, ETFs, stocks, commodity futures, and other non-traditional plays can put your dollars into an industry that many believe will witness a resurgence in the upcoming year. Why the love for oil? Now that OPEC, once the world’s dominant producer of crude, has been supplanted by major U.S. and Russian output, the global oil market has become somewhat destabilized. Until things settle down, prices could get volatile and offer good profit potential.

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