What the Olympic Medals Table Tells Investors

What the Olympic Medals Table Tells Investors By Victor Hill It is five days now since the world's Olympians filed out of the stadium in Rio heading home in a blaze of samba. But for the glorious lasses and lads of Team GB their homecoming on golden-nosed flight BA2016 on Tuesday – which we were told was groaning with Champagne – was triumphant. Of course, I'm biased. Putting national pride aside, as an economist, one would have expected the UK to have done well. Its new-found sporting superpower status aligns precisely with its long-held status as a soft-power superpower whose books, fashions, TV formats, music and ideas resonate around the world. As an illustration of this status, I cite an experience I had some time ago. I stumbled into a bar in a remote part of Tajikistan only to find that the semi-nomadic yokels were entranced by TV coverage of the English Premier League. (My knowledge of the local patois was not up to explaining that, at a national level, the British – with the noble exception of the Welsh – are rubbish at football.) Actually – and far be it for me to rain on our parade – the main reason why Team GB ended up in second place in the medals table (trailing the almighty USA by a long way) was that China underperformed – at least relative to the last three Olympics. At London 2012 the Chinese won 88 (a lucky Chinese number) medals, of which 38 gold. This time they won a total of 70 medals, of which "just" 26 gold. By the way, Team GB got 29 gold medals in London versus 27 in Rio. But no one talks about Britain's underperformance because of the second place in the medals' league… Click Here To Read The Full Story The Master Investor Market Report The FTSE 100 closed the day at 6,838.05, an increase of 21.15 points. The FTSE 250 rose 47.94 points to finish at 17,930.79. The FTSE All Share climbed 11.19 points to finish at 3,728.71. The FTSE AIM All Share finished at 792.81,up by 3.14 points. Shares in hospitality outfit Restaurant Group (RTN) rose by 3.6% to 422p today despite the company reporting that it swung to a pre-tax loss of £22.5 million during the 27 weeks ended 3rd July. Like-for-like sales dropped 3.9% and management have announced that they will close 33 underperforming locations with immediate effect. Shore Capital said that the results were ahead of expectations but that more had to be done to stabilise the business. Get our August issue while it's hot! Click HERE to read. Vehicle and tool rental specialist Speedy Hire (SDY) has agreed the sale of its large mechanical plant fleet for a cash consideration of £14.4 million. The proceeds of the deal will be used to reduce debt. The fleet earned revenues of £3.2 million during the year ended 31st July and Speedy has entered a re-hire agreement that will run for up to seven years. The shares climbed 2% to 38p.  Gardening products firm Marshalls (MSHL) grew pre-tax profits by 21% to £25.1 million during the first half of the year as operating margins improved by 170 basis points. Revenues were up by 2% as an improvement in domestic sales outweighed a 10% drop in sales in international markets. Management believe that the medium- and long-term outlook for the business is good and are confident in meeting 2016 full-year targets. The shares climbed in early trading, but settled back to 314.20p by the close. Tuesday's news today  BATM Advanced Communications (BVC) will release interim results. Quote of the day "All money is a matter of belief."  - Adam Smith Latest Stories Something for the Weekend – Britain's Got Telecom By Adrian Kempton-Cumber It amazes me that people here are so absorbed by foreign politics but scarcely seem to engage with domestic politics at all. The Trump campaign is a classic example. I see countless retarded posts by Brits on Facebook saying things like "we've GOT to stop Trump getting elected"... Click Here To Read The Full Story Chart of the Day: Global Resources Investment Trust By Zak Mir There may be some of us who are kicking ourselves for missing out on the great 2016 rebound for mining and energy stocks. However, even though it is not exactly early days to try to get on board, there are some contenders relatively near to the low end of their respective ranges… Click Here To Read The Full Story Can Persimmon Build on This Recovery? By Robert Sutherland Smith I last wrote on Persimmon (PSN) shares last month when they were languishing at 1,239p and it struck me that they were looking remarkably good value on the fundamentals. It is always a bit risky calling shares before the actual results but where there is risk there is the potential for reward as well… Click Here To Read The Full Story The Evil Diaries: Molins, Orsu and Olympic Heroes By Evil Knievil I caught up with Molins (MLIN) yesterday afternoon in the light of their results statement to 30th June 2016. The pension deficit (i.e. the excess of the computation of actuarial liabilities over fund assets of c. £350m) is £10m or so… Click Here To Read The Full Story Chart of the Day: Jimmy Choo By Zak Mir Considering that the last pair of shoes I purchased was £29.99 at Top Man, it could be argued quite fairly that the Jimmy Choo proposition is not really something which I espouse. But then again, with the stock market, knowing when to separate business from pleasure is all important… Click Here To Read The Full Story Join the movement on social media: Copyright 2016 Master Investor Ltd, All rights reserved. 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