The Many Ideas That Led To The Modern-Day Smart Phone: Chart

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I came across an interesting chart while reading a research paper on innovation multipliers by Vanguard. The study notes that the smart phone is based on hundreds of ideas or patents that were invented before. This is surprising indeed. For the average user it looks the smart phone was invented from scratch just a few years ago. But that is not the case. Some of the features that are in a smart phone today were invented many decades ago all the way back to 1960s.

The below chart shows the number of patents referenced in the original iPhone development by Apple(AAPL):

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Source: Megatrends – The Idea Multiplier: An acceleration in innovation is coming, Vanguard

An excerpt from the study:

The creation of the modern-day smart phone, for example, relied on hundreds of previous discoveries, many outside of the United States, in fields ranging from automatic data compression to zooming functionality (see Figure 5). A key component of all modern-day smart phones is the alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass used on the touch screen. This innovation was developed in the 1960s but had little practical use until the consumer electronics industry experimented with the chemically strengthened glass in the mid-2000s (Gardiner, 2012).

The entire paper is a fascinating read.

Disclosure: No Positions

Major World Epidemics and Global Stock Market Performance : Chart

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Global equity markets have been relatively immune to past epidemics according to an article by Jeffrey Kleintop at Shcwab. The chart below shows the performance of the MSCI World Index mapped with all the epidemics since 1970 including Zika, Ebola, SARS from the recent past.

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Source: Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Lead to a Market Breakdown?, Schwab

Knowledge is Power: Virus Shock, Stable Dividend Stocks, Bottom-Up Investing Edition

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Equity markets worldwide are in panic mode. US markets took a turn for the worst in the past few days. The dramatic selloff continues with no end in sight. However the key to surviving this carnage is to be patient and not panic. It is wise to keep monitoring the markets and track any specific stocks for picking up if they fall to dirt cheap levels.

With that said, below are some interesting reads for the day:

Why Single Country ETFs May Not Be The Best

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ETFs that focus on a single county are popular among investors to gain exposure to a country. For example if one needs exposure to the UK equity market one can go with the iShares UK ETF(EWU). However simply investing in a single country ETF may not be the way to profit from growth of that country’s equity market.

For example, the benchmark index of Brazil, Bovespa has grown by more than 120% in the past 5 years. But the iShares Brazil ETF(EWZ) has increased by only 26%+ as shown in the comparison chart below:

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Source: Yahoo Finance

iShares describes the Investment Objective of EWZ as follows:

The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of Brazilian equities.

Related ETF:

  •  iShares MSCI Brazil Index (EWZ)

Disclosure: No Positions