Market analysts are usually judged on their ability to call rate decisions or predict price movements, but with the world's biggest football tournament, the 2026 FIFA World Cup, getting underway this Thursday, one prominent investment research firm has turned its models on a rather different kind of asset: the beautiful game.
BCA Research, a Montreal-based investment research firm, has published its third edition of what it calls "The Most Important of All Unimportant Forecasts", using a proprietary two-step statistical model to predict the outcome of the tournament.
The verdict? France lifts the trophy after defeating Portugal in the final. England and Spain, the model says, go home in the semi-finals.
A model with a track record
Unlike the armchair punditry that tends to dominate the pre-tournament conversation, BCA's approach is rooted in the same discipline the firm applies to sovereign debt and equity markets.
