The World Cup in South Africa is finally here and besides all the focus on the unusually bouncy new ball and the loud yellow "elephant trumpets", the performance of the football teams in the Asia-Pacific (we include South Korea) region has also been of great interest. Above is a lighthearted look at the potential impact of the past week's world cup results on the relevant markets from the kickoff on 11th June. Japan 1 - 0 Cameroon - Nikkei 225 up 1.92% S.Korea 2 - 0 Greece - KOSPI up 0.87% Australia 0 - 4 Germany - S&P ASX 200 Index down 0.3% So I guess all those investors would be finding even more reason to root for their national teams now =) Graphical and data source: Bloomberg