Five places to look for the next investment bubble

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: place: Old Europe. Forget about the BRICs. The next decade will belong to the FIGs -- France, Italy and Germany. We have written them off for so long that we’re in danger of forgetting that all three have been among the richest societies in the world for more than 1,000 years.

As the Chinese and Indian middle classes expand, they will spend money on the kind of upmarket, design-led, history-rich products the FIGs are so good at making. After the credit crunch, their mix of stable, export-led, self-financing growth will look more attractive than the debt-fueled UK and US models.

Next, the industry: automobiles. It has been almost a century since we last witnessed a gold rush in cars, suggesting it’s high time for a replay. After oil prices reached records, some of the world’s smartest people began looking more seriously at creating cheap and non-polluting electric cars. If they crack it, a few hundred million vehicles will be replaced within a few years. Think about the fortune the music industry made when we replaced our vinyl records with compact discs and then multiply it by 10,000 or more. It sure sounds like a boom.

Stockbroker boom

How about the financial bubble? That will be stockbroking. It’s so long since it was in fashion, there aren’t even many left in business. Most are just divisions of investment banks. And yet, there are now thousands of companies with shattered balance sheets from the credit crunch. They need advisers who have strong relationships with investors and can raise money for their clients by selling shares.

That’s what stockbrokers used to do. If you are smart, quietly shut down that hedge fund, and become a stockbroker. In a few years, UBS AG will pay a fortune to buy you out.

The currency bubble will involve the dollar. The markets have kicked it around for a long time, and yet by next year it may well be the U.S. that has the world’s strongest economy. The weak dollar will spark an export boom. Pretty soon we’ll be describing the U.S. as the new Germany -- an export-led, manufacturing economy, held back only by the reluctance of its consumers to spend money.