Are you in utter despair that England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup is in grave danger of falling apart? Here’s something to cheer you up: JP Morgan has crunched the numbers and concluded that England will win this summer’s World Cup in South Africa.
Yes, it’s official: Analysts illustrated on Tuesday how ‘Quant methodology’ (you know, the use of mathematical data to assess investment opportunities) can be applied to the real world. Or in this case, soccer. And the country that invented the world’s most popular sport (but only has one major trophy to its name) should be all smiles. Those mathematical models that usually scrutinize stocks got given data instead on world rankings, historical results and bookmakers’ odds. And the takeaway is that England will defeat Spain in the final, with Holland coming in third place.
But before you rush out and put your hard earned on an England win (you can get odds of 6/1 on them lifting the World Cup), do bear in mind that JP Morgan went on to say that Brazil are the strongest side but England’s initial schedule (USA, Algeria and Slovenia) is more favorable. The analysts also noted that these results should be taken “with a pinch of salt,” though the World Cup serves as “an ideal opportunity to light-heartedly explain quantitative techniques and demystify the typical Quant framework.” For sure JP Morgan, at this time of global economic uncertainty, what’s absolutely needed is the demystifying of the Quant framework. The fact that you’ve unreasonably raised English expectations (this writer is predicting a semi-final England exit via penalty kicks) is not what the nation needs right now (but if you can bring the prospect of a BA strike to an end, that would be wonderful).