View: The Royal Olympic Jump................Evil Plan 77.0 (by BDI) - Sl...

The Royal Olympic Jump................Evil Plan 77.0 (by BDI) - Sl...

Evil Plan 77.0........... 
The Royal Olympic Jump

God Save The Queen!!!

Well Slope-a-Dopes, in case you missed the royal air show, please be advised that the 2012 London Olympics officially began this past Friday. Once umpire Mario Draghi fired the starter pistol, the stock market most certainly knew the Summer Games had begun, as it took off out of the starting blocks faster than Usain could Bolt.  As for the rest of the opening festivities, I really don't even know where to begin here, let's just say the English showed us the Monty Python version of opening ceremonies. The only saving grace to the otherwise loony Limey production, was Sir Paul's memorable closing tune "Hey Jude". 

Na na na, na-na na naNa-na na na, hey JudeNa na na, na-na na naNa-na na na, hey Jude

On a more serious note, I was searching for any existing historical stock market correlations with the Olympic games, when I stumbled upon this gem from Tuesday's WSJ:

The Olympics begin Friday night, and while investors can bet on the games, they should hold off betting on big market returns.

According to  a report from Saeed Amen, a quantitative strategist at Nomura International, the short-term performance of various asset classes around the Olympics leaves much to be desired. Since 1976, stocks of the host nation have lost 4% during the two weeks before the beginning of the Olympics, gained 1% during the games  and lost 1.8% during the two weeks following the closing ceremonies.

Investors should also resist going  for the gold, Amen’s data shows: The precious metal lost 2.5% in the two weeks before the Olympics started, 0.4% during the games and 0.2% during the two weeks after the end.

Who’s the big winner? The Wall Street Journal projects the U.S. will lead the medal count, and U.S. stocks may be the best overall performer. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has lost 0.3% during the two weeks before the games, has gained 1.4% during the completion and lost just 0.2% during the two weeks after the games ended.

We certainly do have quite a few Olympic sized events coming up next week in the markets, which could well have great impact on the games.  Monday we have Tim Geithner (USA) vs. Wolfgang Schauble (GER) in what is sure to be a very dicey fencing match, staged at one of the few venues outside of London on the isle of Sylt, where Timmay could well recieve a carton noire (Carton noir: indicates the most serious offences in a fencing competition, in which the offending fencer is expelled from the tournament).  On Tuesday, Case Shiller takes us on a much anticipated tour of the entire Olympic village. On Wednesday, the USA FOMC committee reviews its critical Olympic game plan with us. On Thursday, both the BOE & the ECB review their own key Olympic strategies. On Friday, the monthly USA medal count is announced for all the soon to be unemployed U.S. athletes.

The Olympic stage does indeed seem set for some thrilling competitive action, but keep in mind that frequently the most highly anticipated sporting events are often totally disappointing duds. Although we could definitely witness some harrowing market moments during the games in the next couple of weeks, the overall Olympic equity results should end up as expected.  The USA will beat out nearly all the others competitors by the usual margin of +10 to 15 S&P Gold medals, only the Chinese will give the Americans a run for the top Olympic medal count, with many Hang Seng Gloden points of their own.  

The top national teams ranked by projected gold-medal count at the London Olympics:

USA off to a slow start, Olympic junkies can get the actual live running medal count here:

http://projects.wsj.com/olympics2012/london-medal-count/?mod=WSJ_OL2012_Medals2012

So you see Dopes, nothing really unanticipated or overly upsetting will happen after all. In my view, the real evil games will only begin after the Queen blows out the Olympic flame at the end of the following week, extinguishing once and for all the Olympic sized clusterfuck that is the London/NY financial markets.  Torch the Royal Casino!  

1,404 meters is a long way down......God save the Queen!

Evil Plan 77.0..........................let the real Evil Games begin!

BDI SOH's Idiot Savant

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