Water will eventually be traded like oil and gold and investors should look to utilities right now for safe profit in volatile markets, according to one strategist.
Returns on utilities, mostly on the water side, are 45 percent and in the future when the world "world wakes up they're going to free the market and water will be traded," Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer at Saxo Bank, told CNBC Europe Tuesday.
Investors should buy French utility GDF Suez or German utility RWE, which have large exposure to water resources, as well as utility exchange-traded funds, Jakobsen said on "Squawk Box Europe."
There is a scarcity of water in Asian countries like China and that will fuel the growth in those markets, he added.