A model for sharemarket success

AUSTRALIA needs a model to grace the cover of America’s Sports Illustrated not for bragging rights or their beauty, but for the Australian sharemarket.

Eric Fry, a Wall Street hedge fund manager and founder of the Free Market Cafe website, found when a model graces the cover of Sports Illustrated a four-year bull run usually follows in her home country’s sharemarket. Mr Fry discovered the trend in 2000.

“This indicator has amassed a track record that is as stunning as any swimsuit cover model,” he wrote.

When Elle Macpherson scored a hat-trick of covers — 1986, 1987 and 1988 — the Australian Stock Exchange’s 50 Leaders Index rose 91 per cent the following four years. Mexico’s Elsa Benitez in 2001 (up 112 per cent), Argentina’s Yamila Diaz-Rahi in 2002 (73 per cent) and Israel’s Bar Rafaeli in 2009 (83 per cent), along with Czech trio Daniela Pestova in 2000 (86 per cent), Petra Nemcova in 2003 (406 per cent) and Veronica Varekova in 2004 (296 per cent), continued the trend.

There were a couple of blips — Germany’s Heidi Klum in 1998 and Russia’s Irina Shayk in 2011.