2016 Olympics Winner's Stock Market May Get Boost

Seemingly counter-intuitive, at least to me, a study reported by Bloomberg claims that in the five days following the award of the hosting of an Olympics the stock market of the new host gains an average of 2%. I say counter-intuitive because with the exception of the recent games staged in America, almost every Olympics in the last 30 years or more has lost money, often considerable money.

The award of an Olympics to an American city does not have as marked an effect on the US stock market as an American city is not as significant to the American economy as is any city hosting an Olympics in any other host country. With Chicago's likeliest strongest competitor being Rio, the impact on the Brazilian stock market may not be as significant as the Olympics has been in the past, given that the Brazilian market has been one of the world's best performing markets this year, with the Bovespa index up 63% so far this year. On Intrade this morning, Chicago's chances are up 1.4 to 63.4, while Rio was unchanged at 34.6