Ghana wins Equity World Cup

Ghana will win an “Equity” World Cup, according to research by S&P Indices which compares the relative performance of equity markets from January to May 2010 in the countries that have qualified for the football world cup.

The simulation follows the football draw, with the winner, measured by equity market performance, going through to the next round (see graph attached).

According to S&P, Ghana’s victory underlines a strong showing from a number of emerging and frontier markets, with the nation returning an equity performance of 50.73 per cent in the first five months of 2010.

Nigeria, beaten by Ghana in an all-African semi-final, also performed strongly with a growth of 19.97 per cent. The fact the Chilean market was down 5.48 per cent but the country still made the semi-finals is testament to the weak average return across markets in Europe and North America, S&P says.

While Spain remains the bookmakers’ favourite for the football world cup, its equity performance of -37.49 per cent rules it out of the equity world cup at the group stage.

Similarly a number of other European markets have had disappointing returns in equity markets for the first half of this year, reflected by Denmark (-10.46 per cent) the only one to reach the last four.

According to the S&P simulation there will be a number of football upsets in the equity world cup, with the current World Cup holders, Italy, defeated by Japan; and England defeated by the USA.

The S&P Equity World Cup was simulated with data drawn from the S&P Global BMI, comprised of the S&P Developed BMI and the S&P Emerging BMI.