Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List

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Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci is known not only as a great painter but also a great inventor. His voracious curiosity for knowledge and science led him to learn and master a variety of subjects. Recently I came across an article on “The To-Do List” he used to maintain around the 1490s. Unlike most to-do lists that we create using our cellphone apps and computers his to-do list is fascinating to say the least. A typical to-do list might look like :

  1. Play Golf 9-12
  2. Pay Credit Card XYZ
  3. Pay Credit Card ABC
  4. Pay Mortgage
  5. Pay Electric Bill
  6. Pay Gas Bill
  7. Conference in LA
  8. Football Practice Sunday 1-4
  9. Pay Doctor Bill
  10. Laundry
  11. Renew gym membership
  12. Car oil change
  13. Mow lawn
  14. Dinner date with wife

blah blah blah….

The above list is as dull as a to-do list can be.

Compared to the above typical list, below is an excerpt from the article on Leonardo’s to-do list:

[Calculate] the measurement of Milan and Suburbs

[Find] a book that treats of Milan and its churches, which is to be had at the stationer’s on the way to Cordusio

[Discover] the measurement of Corte Vecchio (the courtyard in the duke’s palace).

[Discover] the measurement of the castello (the duke’s palace itself)

Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle.

Get Messer Fazio (a professor of medicine and law in Pavia) to show you about proportion.

Get the Brera Friar (at the Benedictine Monastery to Milan) to show you De Ponderibus (a medieval text on mechanics)

[Talk to] Giannino, the Bombardier, re. the means by which the tower of Ferrara is walled without loopholes (no one really knows what Da Vinci meant by this)

Ask Benedetto Potinari (A Florentine Merchant) by what means they go on ice in Flanders

Draw Milan

Ask Maestro Antonio how mortars are positioned on bastions by day or night.

[Examine] the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto

Find a master of hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill in the Lombard manner

[Ask about] the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese

Try to get Vitolone (the medieval author of a text on optics), which is in the Library at Pavia, which deals with the mathematic.

Source: Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (Circa 1490), Open Culture

The entire above-linked article is worth a read.

The Indian Economy Is Domestically Oriented

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India is the sixth largest economy in the world. According to IMF data, India’s GDP in 2017 was $2.6 Trillion. The trade wars initiated President Trump with China and other countries may not impact India severely as the economy is domestically oriented noted Sukumar Rajah of Franklin Templeton in an article last month.

76% of revenues of companies in the Nifty 500 Index were generated in India as the chart below shows:

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Source: Trade Turmoil Doesn’t Derail Our Outlook for India, Franklin Templeton

From an investment perspective, stocks of Indian firms that are mostly domestic oriented are better bets than those exposed to the US and the global economy. For example, the IT sector is highly dependent on the US and hence investments in the sector can be avoided.

Related ETFs:

  • PowerShares India (PIN)
  • WisdomTree India Earnings (EPI)

Disclosure: No Positions

Foreign Stocks To Watch: What is Veoneer and Energizing Ecopetrol

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In this new series I will list out select foreign stocks to watch for the following week. In addition, this post will also include economic events, oil prices, earnings and other related items of interest.

1. Ecopetrol(EC): The Colombia oil producer has been on fire in recent months and its movement is highly related to the price of oil. Brent crude for November 2018 delivery closed at $78.09 on Friday. Rising oil prices together with better earnings and new discoveries should propel the stock further. Last week the stock broke out and reached a new 52-week high of $25.60 on heavy volume. EC is up 72% year-to-date. Related Colombian bank to watch is Bancolombia (CIB).

2.Continental AG(CTTAY): German Auto-parts maker plunged recently on second earnings warning in a span of few months. Stock reached 52-week low of 34$ recently all the way down from a peak of about $62. Market is over reacting to news and further declines may offer potential entry points. Related company to consider is Sweden-based Autoliv(ALV). From a 52-week high of $115 the ADR reached about $84 recently.On Sept 11th, S&P raised its rating on the stock to Strong Buy. Investors can also look into the spinoff Veoneer(VNE) as autonomous driving continues to evolve.

3.Select most fallen year-to-date(YTD) club members: The following stocks have declined sharply YTD. Value investors can research these for possible investment options. Brazilian oil distributor Ultrapar(UGP) is off by 59%. India’s Tata Motors(TTM) is down by over 45%. Others with declines of over 25% YTD include British American Tobacco(BTI), Trivago(TRVG), LG Display(LPL), Telekomunikasi Indonesia(TLK).

4.Notable top performers YTD: Some of the best performing foreign stocks YTD are listed below:

Logitech (LOGI): 41%

Grupo Aeroportuario-OMA (OMAB): 30%

China National Offshore Oil-CNOOC (CEO): 29%

5.Stocks on my radar: Canadian National Railway Co(CNI), Anheuser Busch Inbev NV(BUD), Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ASR), Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (PAC) and Novo Nordisk(NVO)

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Mount Teide National Park, Tenerife, Spain

Disclosure: Long EC, CIB, CNI, CTTAY, CIB

Emerging Markets Have Diverse Macroeconomic Profiles: Chart

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Emerging market equities have taken a strong beating this year with countries like Turkey, China, etc. falling by double digit percentage points. The benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index has fallen sharply so far this year.

Even with the selloff, fears of a meltdown in these markets are still in investors’ minds. However not all markets are equal and some countries such as Taiwan, Thailand, etc. have stronger economic profiles than others like India, Poland, Argentina, Turkey, etc. according to a note published by Alliance Bernstein.

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Source: Emerging Markets: It’s Not All About Turkey, Alliance Bernstein Blog

On The Lost Decade Of The BRICs

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The BRIC countries were hyped to be the top investment destination before the Global Financial Crisis. As the craze for emerging markets soared Wall Street came up with a nice-sounding term BRIC to denote the next emerging countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. The simple catch phrase caught on and investors couldn’t get enough of the stocks from these countries during the bubble phase.

From the beginning the term and the logic behind it made no sense. Still no one cared as long as everyone was able to make profits. For instance, there was nothing in common between these countries other than all being developing countries. Brazil was democratic but has so many structural political and economic issues and always remains to be the country of the future. Russia obviously was never democratic and is a superpower in military might but the economy is average. India is another democracy but is plagued by issues even worse than Brazil. China is also neither a democracy nor a military dictatorship but is communist. Somehow these four countries were grouped together to form the BRIC. In reality investors in the BRICs have seen their returned almost turned into worthless bricks in the past decade. In fact, the BRICs have experienced a lost decade.

The MSCI BRIC Index reached its peak in 2007 and is still well below 30% of that peak as shown in the chart below:

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Source: August 2018 Client Letter: BRICs and FAANGs by Matthew Young, Young Investments Ltd.

The key takeaway for investors is to not get carried away by hype such as the BRICs. Or for that matter the newer versions such as MINT, CIVETS, NUTS, EAGLES, etc.

Related ETFs:

  • iShares MSCI Brazil Index (EWZ)
  • iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI)
  • Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX)
  • iShares S&P India Nifty 50 Index (INDY)

Disclosure: No Positions