UK set to miss out on Euro 2016 stock market bump
As national teams land in France ahead of Euro 2016, city workers may be looking forward to letting one eye drift from the Bloomberg terminal towards live blogs and TV coverage.
However, while summer is usually seen as a quiet period for the stock markets, CMC Markets have found that performance at the tournament could drive performance on the markets and spark mini-rallies in the aftermath of victory.
In the 12 months following the last seven European championships, the benchmark share index of the winning country rose by an average of 8.7 per cent – compared to a 4.2 per climb in the US-based S&P 500.
Host nations, by contrast, underperformed the wider market, rising by just two per cent in the year after the tournament.
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With so many eyeballs drawn to screens, it appears there is also a correlation between a company’s presence at the tournament and their share price performance.
Consumer brands and advertisers associated with Euro 2012, the 2014 World Cup and the 2015 Women’s World Cup such as Anheuser Busch, McDonald’s, Sony, Johnson and Johnson, Coca Cola and Visa, all experienced an in-tournament spike.
CMC Markets even speculated that equipment providers like Nike and Adidas suffered a slowdown during the tournament as consumers came to associate them with the failure of the teams and players they sponsor.
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“It’s possible that the disappointment experienced by fans as their favourite teams and players are eliminated could be translating into short-term weakness for the stocks most associated with them,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC.
However, according to a separate poll from the Co-op, there is little chance of the UK basking in the glow of a post-tournament bump. Just one in 20 Britons believe that a home nation will return from Euro 2016, which kicks off in Paris on Friday, with the title.
Brits were similarly pessimistic about the chances of the UK securing victory in any of the other major sporting events this summer. Only two per cent think Team GB will win more Olympics medals in Rio this year than in London in 2012 and just seven per cent think Andy Murray will lift the trophy at Wimbledon.