The concepts, designs, gadgets — everything that is being showcased — provide a glimpse of the future.

Every January thousands of people from around the globe converge on Las Vegas to attend the biggest trade show in the world. Incredible innovations and mind-boggling products are presented at the International Consumer Electronics Show, more commonly known as CES.

Since its launch in 1967, CES has been the place where some of our best-known gadgets were introduced, such as the video cassette recorder, CD players, camcorders and the Microsoft Xbox. And don’t forget the ever-thinner flat-screen TV. This year LG displayed a 55-inch transparent TV and a TV it dubbed the “wallpaper” TV, which is narrower than an iPhone, plus a levitating speaker.

Other Jetsons-like concepts that were presented at CES included Toyota’s (NYSE: TM) new Concept-i UX car — a vehicle designed to “get to know you” and read your emotions and switch between self-driving or manual. Mashable put together a quick one-minute video on the car if you’re interested in seeing what the future of driving might look like.

While some of the gadgets may never make it to the consumer market, the ideas and concepts that are presented at CES can provide clues as to where some of the biggest, most innovative companies in the world see the future heading, and where they plan on spending money to develop some of these ideas.

What do these companies have coming down the pipeline that could have a dramatic effect on sales?

It’s this type of analysis that leads me to many of the picks I recommend to subscribers of my premium newsletter, Top Stock Advisor. The goal of this service is to provide my readers each month with one stock that they can buy and hold for the long term. Invariably, these are shares in companies that transcend current trends and are expected to outperform for many years down the road.

But it’s usually the case that my Top Stock Advisor holdings are in a perfect position to profit from each big trend as it comes along. For example, one of the major themes at CES this year was virtual and augmented reality, which two of my holdings, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), are investing heavily in.

#-ad_banner-#Facebook, which acquired virtual reality company Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion, was at CES showcasing its Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset. Intel provided a prototype of its own VR headset, Alloy, which it expects to arrive by the fourth quarter of 2017. One of the neat things about Alloy is that it’s a self-contained VR headset, meaning there are no cords attached to limit your playing space. It can scan your room, detecting furniture and any other objects and then turn your room into a fully immersive digital world.

Virtual reality is a massive movement and companies like Intel and Facebook that are at the forefront of this development stand to reap the benefits. It’ll soon be involved in many parts of our lives outside of just gaming, including healthcare, space exploration, museum exhibits and, of course, shopping — just to name a few promising applications.

Bottom line: This is one trend you’ll want to keep an eye on.

Intel wasn’t just showcasing its new VR headset at CES. The company also showed off a sample of its 5G modem, the next generation in the wireless industry. As the world becomes more and more connected it will require data to be transferred at faster and faster speeds in order to make all of these new technologies work together. And that’s Intel’s goal with its new 5G platform.

While Facebook and Intel were focusing on virtual reality, another one of our holdings, Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), was aiming its efforts on the wearables side of the tech spectrum. Qualcomm believes that 2017 will see a burst of wearable devices — where fashion meets technology in a game-changing manner.

Qualcomm has invested heavily into its processor known as the Snapdragon 835 — a processor that’s smaller, faster and has a larger battery life that it believes can help give the wearables segment the push it really needs (not to mention the speed it can bring to the VR world).

The CES show is full of futuristic gadgets and concepts — many of which, as we’ve seen, come courtesy of some of the established companies I hold in the Top Stock Advisor portfolio.

You can expect these stocks to perform well into the future. But if you find yourself in need of more guidance for the year ahead, then I suggest you check out my latest report on the Top 10 Stocks For 2017.

This report is one of the hallmarks of what we believe in as a company, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, I urge you to do so now. I can’t promise all of this year’s Top 10 Stocks will be winners, but our previous picks have delivered gains of 53%, 101%, even 159% in a single year. To learn how to get this year’s report, follow this link.