The pandemic has forced millions of Americans to retire early...

That includes Lucie Desmond, a 62-year-old flight attendant who expected to work until age 70. She joined millions of others who are now facing a difficult financial future.

When asked about her colleagues who'd already retired earlier than expected, Desmond told AARP, "They cried, they literally cried. It's very sad."

I could feel the pain in her words.

The Center for Retirement Research has raised its estimate of Americans unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living from 50% to 55%. With Social Security and pensions adjusted only to keep up with the rate of inflation, your prospects for making more money as you get older are extremely limited.

I'm currently 60 years old. My health is excellent, and I hope I'm many years away from my own retirement. Plus, I'm even more productive today than I was 30 years ago.

But I'm not immune to what happened to Desmond – no one is. That's why in 2018, I decided to take charge of my financial future...

Over the years, I've learned a great deal from reading the books and essays of living legend Howard Marks. He is one of my favorite investors, and he has a knack for eloquently describing things I also see and believe in.

I want to share this excerpt from his latest essay, "The Winds of Change." I consider these some of the most important words he has written all year (emphasis added)...

For investors... there's a new world order. Words like "stable," "defensive" and "moat" will be less relevant in the future. Much of investing will require more technological expertise than it did in the past. And investments made on the assumptions that tomorrow will look like yesterday must be subject to vastly increased scrutiny.

Increasingly, U.S. business is virtual, digital and information-oriented... Even those companies that do produce physical goods or services increasingly employ information products and other aspects of technology. These elements will have a profound impact on which legacy businesses will survive, which moats will hold up, and which newcomers will supplant the incumbents, as well as what our world will look like ten or twenty years from now.

I completely agree. A decade from now, our world might be so different that it would be unrecognizable to us today.

Therefore, I'd like to share some good news with you...

We're in the midst of one of the greatest wealth-creating opportunities of our lifetime.

As I wrote in last Friday's DailyWealth essay, imagination and technology are now colliding...

This intersection of imagination and technology is creating new ways of doing things. And the companies that exist at this intersection are the ones we want to own... right now, before everybody else figures out they even exist.

In 2018, I began working on a system to seek out these winners. I dedicated myself to identifying the kind of stocks that can go up 10 times in value... turning even modest amounts of capital into small fortunes.

I was looking for what they all shared in common... And it didn't take me long to find it.

I learned that behind each 10-bagger stock, there was a business built around a unique and incredibly valuable idea – something that's often referred to as "intellectual property."

In some cases, this intellectual property was an entirely new product geared toward a still-developing market... for example, a drug using a novel mechanism to combat Alzheimer's disease. In other cases, it was an innovative product for an existing market... like a new kind of medical device for knee replacements.

And sometimes, the intellectual property entailed opening a massive new market for a product that had already proven successful.

This is just one part of my system – but it's an important one. And now, this unprecedented point in history will soon create a new wave of companies just like this... with the kind of intellectual property that can make fortunes in as little as three to five years.

That's the good news. You don't need to have already retired rich to benefit from these opportunities. And you don't need decades for your capital to compound.

You just need to be able to take advantage of the period of innovation that's setting up right now, and expand your options for making money... well into retirement.

Good investing,

Mike Barrett

P.S. I've identified a class of stocks that most investors – including me – have ignored for too long. They were hard to find... and difficult to evaluate... until now. I've developed a multifaceted system that can do just that, identifying rare opportunities to potentially make 10 times your money in three to five years... But for the biggest gains, you need to get in before they go mainstream. Click here to get all the details.

As the world becomes more and more driven by digital information, we will need places to store and back up data. And one company is likely to profit from this growing necessity...

Market Notes

THE HEALTH CARE BOOM IS DRIVING THIS BEHEMOTH TO HUGE GAINS

Today, we're revisiting the bull market in health care...

Regular readers know our colleague Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig has been bullish on health care stocks for years. Baby Boomers are getting older, which means they are spending more than ever on their health. Today's company is perfectly positioned to profit as this trend continues...

Abbott Laboratories (ABT) is a $230 billion health care giant. Its business segments cover diagnostic tools, medical devices, and nutrition. This diverse range of businesses means that Abbott is in a great position to ride the health care bull market. And its third-quarter results are the perfect example... Abbott grew total revenues by 22% during the period, hitting nearly $11 billion. While that included a huge boost from COVID-19 diagnostics – which helped fuel 47% growth in the company's diagnostics business – core revenues grew 12% as well.

As you can see in today's chart, ABT has climbed to new highs. And it's up more than 240% over the past five years. As long as the health care boom continues, this stock should keep soaring...