Who Will Win the World Cup...The Usual Suspects?

The 2026 FIFA World Cup began in North America Earlier this week. The World Cup is the showcase event of the world's most popular sport and easily the biggest sporting event on the planet--FIFA estimates five billion people tuned in at some point to watch the 2022 tournament in Qatar. This edition of the World Cup is expected to eclipse the last one. FIFA projects that the current tournament, hosted across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with a record 48 teams, could engage up to six billion people globally.

Football/ soccer is played in over 210 countries; basically in every country and territory across the planet. There have been 22 past World Cups since 1930, with 80 different countries participating. Yet, time and time again, the same few countries manage to win the tournament. As shown below, only eight countries have World Cup: Brazil (5), Italy (4), Germany (4), Argentina (3), France (2), Uruguay (2), Spain (1), and England (1). That's it...no one else. Fairly even between Europe (12) and South America (10), but always seemingly the same few countries. A number of factors can help explain this phenomenon, including that European and South American nations benefit from higher league competition density, have deeper player pools, and longer institutional experience in elite tournaments. Is this unusual? Not really...As we noted previously, within Europe's major football leagues a just a few  teams similarly dominate.  

So, who will win this tournament? The prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi, provides possibly the best insights into what most people are thinking. Both have former winners Spain (16% Polymarket, 17% Kalshi) and France (17% Polymarket, 16% Kalshi) as the top two favorites (as of June 13). Surprisingly, both also have Portugal (10.8%, 10.5%, respectively) as the third choice; somewhat of an egalitarian choice. Buy hey, the wisdom of crowd concept does argue that the collective intelligence of a large, diverse group of people can often make better decisions or predictions than any single individual or a small group of experts. 

Speaking of whom, what do the geeks say? By that, we mean Wall Street forecasters of course! And who better than Goldman Sachs's pedigreed economics team. Goldman, and its German chief economist Jan Hatzius, apply the same approach they might use to make market calls. Goldman's prediction engine is based on nearly 20,000 international matches since 1978, using the Elo rating system to measure team strength (based on match results and opponent quality). The model incorporates: historical performance, scoring talent, team momentum, geographical factors, and the "winner's slump" to adjust for the challenges of repeating. The bank ran 50,000 Monte Carlo simulations to estimate win probabilities. Spain emerges as the favorite in Goldman's model with a 26% probability of winning the World Cup, followed by France (at 19%), Argentina (at 14%), Brazil (at 8%), and England (at 5%). All previous winners (see above). 

Likewise, a team of European academics also built a World Cup prediction engine utilizing machine learning. Their model blends four strength signals: team abilities from historic results (a bivariate Poisson model with exponential time-weighting), a bookmaker-consensus rating from 24 bookmakers, plus-minus player ratings, and transfer market values to produce probabilistic forecasts based on 100,000 simulations. This model also has Spain as the favorite to win the World Cup at 14.5%, closely followed by England and France at 12.4% each and Germany at 11.2%.

These models (or any model for that matter) almost by definition use comparatively limited information that is a small portion of all the information that’s arguably in the possession of the millions of people that have bet online into prediction markets. But they also have less bias and recency bias, so who knows. 

Then there’s AI. Anthropic’s newest model Claude Fable 5 also predicts Spain (18%) will beat France (14%) in the final, followed by Argentina (11%), England (10%!), Brazil (8%), and…Portugal (7%). 

So, whether it's prediction markets, econometric models, or AI it's still the usual suspects that mostly come up as projected winners... 

After nearly three days and seven matches, some observations:

Team USA had the most dominant first match (against Paraguay)

American Gio Reyna had arguably the best goal so far

Qatar had the most surprising result holding Switzerland to a draw with a dramatic late equalizer

Brazil vs Morocco was the most exciting game  

NY Knicks are NBA Champions!

After 53 years…it’s coming back home! They did it in five after another clutch performance from their captain Jalen Brunson.

Start Spreading the News...the Knicks Have the New York State of Mind!

What was looking like the Madison Square Garden massacre turned into an MSG miracle, as the Knicks made an improbable comeback from 29 points down to beat the Spurs 107-106! It was the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history!

There was so much going, but in the end OG Anunoby saved the Knicks with a game-winning tip-in. Per the Athletic: "It was just a fingertip, a redirection, a deflection. But to New York Knicks coach Mike Brown, it was the greatest shot ever taken in the basketball capital of the world." Indeed, it was truly one of the most remarkable moments in Knicks history! It certainly made the $3,500+ get in price for Game 4 (which itself had plummeted from $13,500 after the Knicks lost Game 3), totally worth it! 

Full highlights here:

Knicks Mania!

The New York Knickerbockers are just two games away from their first NBA championship in 53 years after just edging out the Spurs 105-104 in a thrilling Game 2 at San Antonio. The Knicks survived a dramatic 14-point swing late in the game to win their 13th consecutive post-season game. It's the second longest (single-season) streak in the history of the NBA Playoffs, passing the Spurs’ 12-game streak in 1999… against the Knicks! Here's the last 5 minutes:

Now Knicks mania is sweeping New York (see below). With the series now heading to NYC, the possibility of seeing the Knicks win their first NBA title since 1973 in person at Madison Square Garden have caused ticket prices for Games 3 and 4 to skyrocket. The get-in price for Game 3 is now over $11,700! And for Game 4 (which could be the series clincher) the cheapest tickets are going for more than $14,650! As reported in the WSJ, the most expensive seats are priced at $176,000, thanks to...finance bros who not only want to see, but (just as importantly) want to be seen. Per the WSJ, '“If you’re not there, you’re a loser,” [India Sienna] said of the psychology behind such purchases.' 

Wall Street is riding high after a strong bonus season and is looking forward towards the blockbuster IPOs of SpaceX and Anthropic in the summer to keep the party going, so splurging on a touchstone moment in New Yorks sports seems right. But ordinary New Yorkers are benefitting too (even if they can't afford to see the Knicks in person). America's favorite mayor and avid Knicks fan, Zohran Mamdani, announced that more than $200 million has been made so far in the Knicks postseason for the city! By Wednesday, perhaps it'll be $500 million! Here's a taste of NYC is the midst of Knicks mania...

The Mag 7 Turns to the Dynamic Duo

Since OpenAI debuted ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, the technology sector has been on a historic AI-driven rally, with the NASDAQ-100 Index gaining over 145% (through June 5, 2026). But within tech, the Magnificent 7 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla) has generated even more eyeing popping returns, as a group gaining 379% (assume an equal-weighted basket that is not rebalanced). These seven stocks have a collective market capitalization of $23.8 trillion, approximately 35.2% of the entire S&P 500 market cap.

But since the start of 2025, five of the seven stocks in the Magnificent 7 have started to fade. After gaining 106% in 2023 and 79% in 2024, the above Magnificent 7 basket rose a 'modest' 26% in 2025 and is up just 3% YTD. Only Alphabet and Nvidia are outperforming the S&P 500 over the past 17 months, 5 days. In fact, Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla are barely holding on, either flat or actually negative since 2024, as shown below.

Source: Total Real Returns and Mentabye calculations. As of June 5, 2026.

Compare that to the 2023-2024 period, when all the Magnificent 7 stocks were blowing past the S&P 500, especially Nvidia which gained 820%! Perhaps the frenzy around AI is starting to cool? Or is the Mag 7 is really becoming the Mag 2? 

Source: Total Real Returns and Mentabye calculations. As of December 31, 2024.

The 100 Baggers Club

Over the past decade and half, 25 listed companies have gained 100x or more in value in the U.S. and Europe. The top performer was XPEL, a Texas-based firm that specializes in automotive surface protection and window tint solutions. XPEL, founded in 1997, has returned 1,182x (i.e., a $100 investment would have grown to $118, 200!). Number two was Patrick Industries, the Indiana-based supplier of parts for RVs and mobile homes, returned 654x. Both XPEL and PATK are relatively tiny companies with market capitalizations of $1.1 billion and $3.0 billion, respectively.   

Source: Thierry from arvy; Syz Group (blog.syzgroup.com). (Note, growth as of April 3, 2024)

Interestingly, this list also includes two of the world’s biggest companies NVIDIA and Netflix. NVIDIA, now the largest company in the world with a market cap of $5.5 trillion, has soared in value by over 31,000%! Fifteen years prior it was still a relatively large ~$18 billion company making this growth all the more remarkable.

                                                                                    

Source: Yahoo Finance and Mantabye. Click to enlarge. 

There are other interesting breakdowns. While most of the firms above are 20-40 years old, the oldest is over 150 years. German biopharma Sartorius was founded way back in 1870 and it's time to be a growth stock finally arrived! Not surprisingly, nearly half of the companies (11) are in tech; four hardware-focused (NVIDIA, Entegris, SMCI, and Besi) and seven software-oriented. Other sectors represented include industrials (5), health care (3), consumer discretionary (3), consumer services (2), and real estate (Sagax). Similarly, more than half (14) are based in the U.S., followed by Europe (9). Finally, based on the most common categorizations of market cap, 23 of these companies were either micro or small-cap companies when their remarkable growth started. Forward 15 years, eight had graduated to mid-cap status, ten to large-cap status, and two (you know who) became mega caps. One, AVIS, also became a meme stock--which certainly has helped its return.

In hindsight, investing in NVIDIA, Netflix, Super Micro, etc. seem pretty obvious. But it's worth remembering there are tens of thousands of publicly traded companies at any given time. Just 25 returned 100x (over the sample period). Good luck finding them! Compare that to the odds hitting the jackpot in private markets. Venture capitalists argue that the most successful companies' growth happen before they go public (which is why you should, naturally, give them your money!). But even VC returns are highly skewed; their 'spray and pray' approach means perhaps only 1 in 40 investments may return a10x, let alone a 100x. So, if you happen to have invested in any one of the above companies in the past 10-15 years, then you've done:
  

Iran War Pressuring U.S. Workers

The consumer price index rose 3.8% year over year in April 2026, up from 3.3% in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The inflation rate is now at a three-year high. The main driver was surging energy prices driven by the war in Iran. In particular, gasoline prices jumped over 28% y-o-y! The chart below shows all the components of CPI and their changes annual % change. 

Source: CNBC and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of April 10, 2026.
 

The rise in inflation is squeezing American households whose wages have increased by only 3.6% over the same period, as shown below. Wage growth had been gradually declining over the past few years, but still outpaced inflation improving Americans' purchasing power. Now for the first time in three years, American workers' paychecks are lagging behind inflation--a casualty of the Iran war. Per Axios, workers are now "earning less in real terms which is a threat to the spending that has kept the economy humming." 

Source: Axios and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Click chart to enlarge.

Polls show rising bipartisan frustration with the rising cost of living and deep dissatisfaction with President Trump's policies. 70% of Americans now disapprove of his handling of the economy, which is significant given that Trump’s 2024 victory rested heavily on a promise he could better manage the U.S. economy than Biden/Harris, particularly with respect to the cost of living. But President doesn't seem to have gotten the message yet: