MAKE MONEY BUYING "CLOUD" STOCKS

There is a tremendous amount of buzz about the cloud almost everywhere you turn. Apple's announcement that it is bringing iCloud to you by the end of this year has only magnified all the attention this type of technology is getting.

While cloud computing isn't new, it is ramping up in importance and it appears to be the real future going forward. It won't be long before most or all of what you do will be stored in the cloud rather than on your desktop or laptop. Whether you like it or not and whether you think your information will be safe or not, everything is going to be moving to the cloud.

Over the next 10 years, businesses everywhere are going to be investing in and making the move to the cloud. This leads investors to the question: what stocks should I buy to take advantage of this trend and what stocks are poised to make the most money?

The purest stock play on cloud computing is Salesforce.com (CRM) but by the looks of it's chart it is probably much too late to get in. Here is the chart for CRM:

One thing is clear with stocks and the stock market: you have to get in early if you want to make the big money and that means being very good at figuring out what the future holds and what companies are poised to take advantage. By the time something like "cloud computing" is all over the news, it is probably already too late to find a stock that will profit and get your money in at a low price.

There are many other companies that will make money from the cloud as they are involved one way or another. Stocks like Apple, Microsoft, EMC, Google, Amazon, IBM, and Accenture among others will be involved in the cloud and should benefit from it. They all have other products though so their stock prices are not as directly connected to the success or failure of cloud computing.

I personally own EMC and it has more than doubled in the last two years. How much of that is attributable to it's involvement with setting up equipment for the cloud I don't know, but I am glad I have the stock and don't plan to sell.