The office is pretending to work, group chats have descended into tactical warfare, and somewhere a nation’s entire emotional wellbeing is balanced on a 22-year-old’s left foot. The World Cup has well and truly taken over.
And what a tournament it’s turning out to be. We’re into the quarter-finals now, and the graveyard is stacked with giants — Brazil, Germany and the Netherlands all sent packing, and both host nations, Mexico and the USA, knocked out dramatically. Scotland, meanwhile, did the most Scotland thing imaginable and departed at the group stage — early, and with tremendous dignity. Eight teams remain standing, and a continent’s worth of nerves along with them.
But here’s the part that never makes the back pages: football results quietly move money. Let me show you how.
The winner’s curse (yes, really)
Here’s the strange bit, and it’s the one that made me sit up the first time I read it.
Goldman Sachs — the bank, not a man named Goldman shouting at a television — has been publishing World Cup research for years. And their most delicious finding is entirely back-to-front from what you’d expect. Win the World Cup, and your national stock market does indeed get a lovely little bounce — outperforming the global market by around 3.5% in the first month, riding the collective euphoria.
And then? It gives it all back, and then some. Within a year, the champion nation’s market tends to underperform the world by roughly 4%. Goldman’s own verdict, and I do love the dryness of it: enjoy the gains while they last.
So even winning comes with a hangover. The party is real — it’s just shorter than anyone celebrating on the pitch would like to believe. If that reminds you of every red-hot stock everyone piled into at exactly the wrong moment, well — hold that thought.
Where the real money actually plays
Beyond the superstition, a World Cup is a colossal economic machine.
Broadcasters pay billions for the rights. Sponsors pay fortunes to stitch their logos onto the spectacle. And host nations spend wildly on gleaming stadiums they’ll then spend the next decade quietly wondering what on earth to do with. For the brands, it’s a calculated bet: a few seconds of the entire planet’s attention, weighed against an eye-watering fee.
Sometimes it pays off spectacularly. And sometimes — spare a thought — you’re the sponsor of the team that trudges home in the group stage, and you’ve bought yourself a very expensive association with disappointment. Ask anyone who tied their marketing budget to Brazil this year.
The real lesson, hiding in the box score
Now, the useful takeaway here is emphatically not “study the fixtures to pick your stocks.” Please, I beg you, don’t.
It’s something quieter and far more valuable: markets are made of people. And people are emotional, distractible, gloriously irrational creatures whose moods leak straight into their decisions. Sport is simply the most visible proof of it we have — a whole planet feeling the same feeling at the same time, and acting on it.
Can I be honest with you? I’ve learned this one the expensive way. There was a stretch, years ago, where I let a bad mood and a worse headline talk me into a decision I’d already sensibly talked myself out of. The market didn’t care how I felt. It never does. That’s rather the point.
The edge the disciplined investor has always had is the same, unglamorous trick: feel the feelings — properly, don’t bottle them — and then make the decision separately, once the heat has drained out of them. The market doesn’t care that your team lost on penalties. And ideally, neither does your trading account.
The ball is round, the market is moody, and both will happily break your heart if you let them.
So watch the football. Cheer, groan, hide behind a cushion. Just don’t let the final score anywhere near your portfolio.
The Jacqueline Brand — knowledge builds confidence, confidence builds wealth. This is editorial commentary for inspiration, not financial or professional advice. Always do your own research.
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