If you were to view a list of the 75 richest people in all of history — adjusted for inflation — you would see names of royalty and powerful businessmen from around the world.

Of these 75 names, 14 are Americans born within nine years of each other in the mid-1800s. Magnates like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, to name a few. Best-selling sociology writer Malcolm Gladwell says that’s no coincidence. Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers, explores how factors other than intelligence and ambition affect the most successful members of our society.

In this case, the decade in which these powerful people were born was just as important as their vision and drive, according to Gladwell. “What’s going on here?” he writes:

“The answer becomes obvious if you think about it. In the 1860s and 1870s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. This is when the railroads were being built and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrial manufacturing started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which the traditional economy had functioned were broken and remade. What this list says is that it really matters how old you were when that transformation happened.”

The Right Place, the Right Time…

Just as railroads, steel and manufacturing shook up 19th-century America, the credit crisis and this wicked bear market are changing our own investment universe.

We have to take advantage of the fact that we are in what could be the right place at the right time. The market is presenting us with tremendous opportunity. And what better place to look than at the smallest public companies in the world — the aggressive, nimble firms that can adapt and grow while the titans of the old world slip and fall.

While the GM and Ford’s of the world struggle to shed the weight of their past, small companies have a much easier time of adjusting on the fly and adapting to the new economic conditions. Some of the biggest names on Wall Street fell this year because they were slow to react when the credit crisis was on the horizon.

In our current issue of Penny Stock Fortunes, we’ve giving our readers four small companies that are well positioned to make the transition to the post-credit crisis reality. You won’t read about these companies in the Wall Street Journal, but that just means you have a better chance to load up before the rest of the market catches on. You can join our readers at Penny Stock Fortunes, and learn about our CXS Money-Multiplier System, in this special report.

Best Regards,
Greg Guenthner
December 4, 2008

Greg Guenthner

Greg Guenthner heads up Agora Financial’s small-cap division and is the founder of one of the only independent OTC research advisories in the industry. A graduate of George Mason University, Guenthner joined Agora in 2005 after several years as a journalist. He is managing editor of Penny Stock Fortunes and Bulletin Board Elite.

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