Now that the Beijing Olympics is done and dusted we wanted to put an economic spin on the results.

You may have become aware of the Sunrise program's (Channel Seven) Adjusted Medal Tally comparing Australia's results to the USA based on a per capita basis.  The results were very flattering to Australia.

We took this approach a step further and analysed the results of all the countries who won medals at the Olympics comparing the number of medals with the country's GDP from 2007 measured in US dollars.  The GDP data was taken from the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook database - www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/01/weodata/index.aspx

The top 10 countries on this basis were:

Other notable ranks were:

If we only were to look at gold medal winners the top ten were:

and

This just puts another perspective on the Olympic results.  I wouldn't be advising using the tables as a source of picking the best performing share markets for the next year.  Zimbabwe is not somewhere I would be throwing cash at the moment.  It might just be worth keeping an eye out though, as going on the record of forecasters this table could be as useful as some of the more classical methods of forecasting.

One definite use of the data is that it will hopefully quieten down a few of our friendly poms who, according to my sister living in London, are pretty happy with themselves given the success of the UK in the Olympics. (I think unbearable was her term!!)

Not so good when conversing with our friends from across the ditch in New Zealand who yet again seem to have been able to fight above their weight!!

I hope those who are interested in the Olympics have enjoyed the past two weeks and let's hope the euphoria is contagious for our share markets!

Good luck to our Paralympians!!

Regards,

Scott Keefer