If your soccer dream team was an equity portfolio, which stocks would be in it? Bookmakers, sports apparel firms and travel companies seem a safe bet to profit from a large sporting event, but are they the best stocks to hold over the course of a competition?
Ahead of the UEFA Euro 2016 soccer tournament in France, CNBC checks in on the players that should be on your equity dream team.
Using quantitative analysis tool Kensho CNBC screened for the best-performing stocks during the previous UEFA championships if you bought on the first day and sold on the last day of the tournament.
The Euro STOXX Healthcare sector is the surprise outperformer with an average return of over 2 percent during the last seven European soccer championships, with the star players being Smith & Nephew, GSK and Shire.
That’s at direct odds with the sector with the worst performance, technology, which posted an average loss of over 2 percent over the same time, and traded positive on only 45 percent of tournament days.
Several analysts have already picked their favorites for sporting events. In a note issued in April Societe Generale selected bookmakers and travel firms like PaddyPower Betfair and EasyJet.
However, during the tournament itself these stocks underperform with both turning in an average of 3 percent in losses over the last three UEFA European competitions while Punch Taverns, one of the UK’s largest pub companies, has seen its stock fall an average of 20 percent in the same timeframe although this has been compounded by financial headwinds.
Shares in rival JD Wetherspoon have fared better but still fall short of positive territory having dropped an average of over 1 percent during the last five championships. Another stock expected to perform well is the UK’s biggest sporting retailer Sports Direct, which posted an average loss of nearly 5 percent over the last two UEFA European Championships.
Official tournament sponsor Adidas is another stock that investors will watch closely. According to data from Colin Cieszynski at CMC Markets, the stock tends to falter during actual play and fails to perform as well as it does both before and after tournaments.
Investec Wealth & Investment said June could be a very good month for pub companies, and from an economic point of view, it could benefit UK travel and leisure stocks.
Investec did warn however that any boost to UK equities could grind to a halt if the UK votes to leave the European Union on June 23. Outside of the referendum,
English football fans certainly hope their team will still be in Europe come the end of the month and, as Mike Riddell from Allianz Global Investors said in a recent note, ” it’s not inconceivable that results on the football pitch could impact the vote if it is as closely run as the polls suggest.
If England have a lesson taught to them in the group stage by the Russians, the Slovaks and Gareth Bale, who knows, it could be more than just the England football team that crashes out of Europe before the knockouts.”