Having the Olympics in your backyard may not always be the economic boon it is expected to be. Since the 1984 Los Angeles games, six out of the eight summer Olympics host countries saw an increase in value in their local stock market index during the games. However, the average increase was about 1.8%, which has been about the same as the performance of the overall MSCI World Index increase of about 2% during the same period, according to data from FactSet. Both Sydney (2000) and Beijing (2008) saw declines in their local indexes in the two weeks the Olympics were held, of about 0.9% and 7.7%, respectively. Additional factors, such as ... (Read the full story)