View from the Observation Deck

1. We are roughly 52 months away from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil is also playing host to the 2014 World Cup Soccer Tournament.
2. The chart shows the cumulative total returns of the primary equity indices for the host nations spanning the 52-month period ended in July prior to the games. Games usually close in August. Australia closed October 1.
3. The one nation that stands apart from the others is China, which hosted in 2008. We know about the enormous infrastructure undertaking that Beijing splurged on to showcase the 2008 games. At times, China was buying half the world's cement.
4. Based on China's blueprint, it appears that hosting a Summer Olympics can potentially mean a great deal more economically for a developing nation than for a developed nation.
5. It is safe to say that the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta was not the primary driver of stock returns in the U.S. from 3/92-7/96. The U.S. economy was far too large.
6. While we don't know how much Brazil will spend in the end, infrastructure jobs connected to the World Cup and Olympic games are expected to add 120,000 jobs annually until 2016, according to Financierworldwide.com.