Bush and Clinton turned sixty this past year. I'm still a few years away from that birthday cake, so I consider myself a little shy of the Baby Boomer Generation as well. On the other hand, I'm too old to consider myself part of GenX. You could say that I fell between the boards on the generation game, so I never trusted anyone over or under thirty.

Then, I raised a kid at a late age and introduced her to invetments and to life in general from a perspective that was modified by my position as an outsider. As a result, she understands what money can accomplish, she tends to spot downward trends even before they peak, and she can read between the lines, so she remains unaffected by sensationalism. And, she's not a candidate for a job or for marriage yet, because she plans to attend college first. Those last words come from her mouth, not mine.

But, I have news for Republicans and Democrats - my teenager will be old enough to vote in the next presidential election, she's ready to vote, and she's not a party animal. If you can relate to this perspective, then you might be interested in her opinions on future investment strategies as well. I'm not about to sell my daughter out here, because her perspectives are very similar to mine. While this last bit of news might raise a few hairs on some people, those same folks might remember the old adage based on Newton's law of gravity: The apple falls, but it doesn't fall far from the tree.

With that said, the following insights on three separate sectors may reveal how my daughter and her friends feel about these fields:

Tech Sector: According to Advertising Age, 88% of the U.S. population remains untouched by technical advances. In other words, the bulk of adults in this country still don't know about RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds or other technical advances and, if they use the Internet, they use it for family connections and personal projects rather than for research or news. These same adults rely on television for news, and they discuss brands by phone or face-to-face rather than through blogs or listservs. If you don't understand any of the technical terms used here, then you fall into the majority.

What does this lack of knowledge mean for the tech sector? Well, if companies can keep their accounting straight and their CEOs in line, then the future may be bright. This opinon is based on the simple fact that the adults in this country eventually will be replaced by my daughter's generation. She's onto every new device introduced into the tech market, and she prefers to receive her news via the Internet. She watches TV news only when her friends point to discrepencies put forth by this medium. As a result, it appears that my daughter has learned to trust peer opinion more than top-down information, thanks to technical advances.

Health Sector: The health care field has received a boost from the tech sector as new ways to use technology pave inroads for improvements in patient care and in profits.One glance at an eWeek special report on the integration between the tech and health care sectors provides enough information for conversations about healthcare's future for weeks. Accordingly, the headlines alone provide more clues for investment research than there is corn in Nebraska.

Think about this: if you believe that most adults don't use or understand technical products, then who is more likely to benefit from this merge between tech and health care? I can almost feel the lightbulbs turn on from this distance. The health field may receive a boost in the future from a generation that understands technology, knows how to use it, and that wants changes in a field that often seems to suffer more than its patients lately.

Gas and Oil: America was built for gas and oil consumption, and little will change in how we use those commodities in the near future - at least that's how my daughter feels. Gas and oil aren't monsters; however, the corporations that control those commodities are giants, and that's where the problem lies. This opinion leads my daughter and her friends to look for ethical and environmentally-friendly changes, and they expect those changes to happen globally.

Her desires within this sector required deep research, and her results revealed at least one little-known publically-traded company that goes into gas and oil fields after corporations have drunk their fill to clean up in more ways than one. More research revealed overseas alternative fuel companies that receive monetary and political support from the top down and from the bottom up. She believes that investment in foreign companies isn't unpatriotic, especially when investment support will help to protect this country's future generations.

Finally, the issues that surround global warming continue to remain contentious, and the progress toward any resolution may affect all future markets. According to my daughter, Baby Boomers believe that they won't live long enough to feel the effects provided by what they argue are "possible" changes in the environment. This attitude could account for the slow to no movement in any direction on these issues by this country's elders. And, while GenX folks express anger about what they believe will be a total meltdown and they write books that point fingers, these actions do little to affect changes.

The question that she poses about this problem, then - the one that I most often hear from my daughter and from her peers - is: "Why haven't any of you done something?" And, I answer, "Because it's usually the young who make changes." While this answer does nothing to satisfy my girl's query, it has galvanized her to think about her own answers.

As a result, least one young investment-savvy mover and shaker will place her first vote in the November 2008 presidential election, and she knows how to write in a candidate.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin