Post by Lynnette Tania Lee

A hotel room near MetLife Stadium that went for US$218 ($280) before the Fifa World Cup is now asking US$4,500 a night for the weekend of the July 19 final. A surge like this is exactly what businesses across the host nation are yearning for, and fund managers are paying attention too. Live sport has grown into a theme investors build around, and this quadrennial spectacle is a case in point. Three local research houses have weighed in on what the World Cup means for the Singapore market, and their calls diverge. DBS Bank Group Research says buy the June lull, when trading thins, before a July rebound. Maybank Securities counsels acting on the full year, as the STI tends to beat global markets in World Cup years. OCBC Group Research likes the payments and booking names that take a cut regardless of the result. As UBS Global Wealth Management's Mark Andersen and Marianna Mamou put it, "Live sport remains one of the few content formats capable of delivering large, real-time audiences", while the ways that attention is captured and monetised now extend far beyond the traditional broadcast window. Read my story in this week's issue of The Edge Singapore for the key stock picks from each research house. Photo: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore https://lnkd.in/gKvXgS8G #readtheedge