By Scott Ronalds

Many great things come out of the Olympics.  For two and a half weeks, the world turns its attention to stories of athletic passion, determination, and raw emotion.  Billions of people will watch a man dive off a springboard, a woman hurdle herself over a fifteen foot bar, and a team of six spike a ball over a net.  Not to mention that for seventeen days, the daily cascade of stock market squatter takes a back seat to sport.  Sort of, at least.

The Olympics have spawned many technological and scientific innovations over the years.  From advancements in broadcasting equipment to dietary enhancements to space age fabrics & materials to safer crash barriers, the Games have been a catalyst for improvement.  The Olympic movement to become higher, faster, and stronger has led to the development of many useful products (and techniques) that we enjoy in our daily lives.

Not surprisingly, Wall Street can’t keep their hands out of the pot.  This time around we’ve seen the creation of the Dow Jones 2008 Summer Games Index, which consists of all 37 publicly traded companies that have signed on as official Olympic sponsors (in December, the 2010 Winter Games Index will make its debut).  Then there’s the all-important stock market research: Did you know that shares in previous Olympiad nations have risen by an average of 28 per cent the year after hosting the games? (with the Chinese market down 60% from its peak last October, there’s a good chance this streak will stay alive.)

If Speedo can team up with NASA to design a ‘fastskin’ swimsuit that holds a swimmer’s muscles in an optimum position and improves oxygen intake, why can’t the financial engineers design something useful?  The creation of new indexes and largely irrelevant data mining only serves to lead investors astray and convince them to make changes to their portfolios.  Making matters worse, the Summer Games Index has been off to a hot start since its inception at the end of 2006, which may convince a few performance chasers to jump on board.  If only the Wall Street inventions were as positive an influence as the Fastskin suit.