eToro launches Eurovision Stock Contest: Cyprus takes crown in competition’s inaugural year with country’s stock index up 54% in 12 months

With the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest behind us, Romanian viewers together with millions around the world will be glued to their TV sets for the second semi-final tonight.

Romania’s representative Theodor Andrei ill perform his song D.G.T. and the Romanian viewers are hoping to see him in the final on Saturday night. While the quality of the songs may be up for debate, viewers may want to take heed of a very different competition.

Celebrating its first ever year, the Eurovision Stock Contest, from trading and investing platform eToro, ranks the performance of the leading stock exchanges from each of the Eurovision contenders*, looking at collective gains and losses over a 12-month period.

Taking the crown in 2023 is Cyprus (see table 1), with its seven-stock Main Market Index up 54% over the last year. Cyprus is yet to win the better known Eurovision Song Contest in more than 40 attempts, but it claimed the first Stock Contest title thanks to its heavy concentration of banks, with the Bank of Cyprus and Hellenic Bank rallying around 130% during the time period.

The island has a population of just 1.2 million and its stock exchange is a market capitalization minnow of EUR 2.2 billion, at only 0.02% the size of Europe’s EUR 10 trillion Stoxx 600 index, or 0.01% of the US S&P 500’s market capitalization.

In second place, Serbia’s Belgrade exchange is up 40% in the last year thanks to the strong performance of its oil refiners and aluminum stocks, which are up circa 50%. The country will be hoping for similar success in its Eurovision Song Contest bid this year, after its representative, Luke Black, has already qualified for the final.

The final place on the podium goes to serial Eurovision Song Contest winner Ireland, with its local stock index up 18% over 12 months, in part thanks to the very strong share price performance of gambling firm Flutter and bank AIB. This year however, Ireland was already eliminated from the music competition in Tuesday’s semi-final.

Other strong performers in this year’s Eurovision Stock Contest were Greece (+17%), France (+16%) and Germany (+15%).

Romania managed to place 6 times in the top 10 since its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 and managed to be two times on the podium occupying third place. Romania’s stock exchange performance, shy of breakeven (-2%), is putting it in 25th place, below its actual Eurovision 2022 performance (18). But for those who invested in stocks listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange 2023 looks promising with the BET index being up almost 5% year to date.

Commenting on the data, Bogdan Maioreanu, Market Analyst at eToro, said: “While Cyprus hasn’t been blessed in the Eurovision Song Contest – holding the record for the most entries into the competition without a win – the country was the clear winner in our inaugural Eurovision Stock Contest. Cyprus finished head and shoulders above other contenders, thanks to its small stock exchange being dominated by banks which have enjoyed huge share price gains over the last year.  

“Several of the heavyweight stock exchanges have also offered great returns over the last year and consequently ranked highly in our competition, with Germany’s DAX earning the country sixth spot and France’s CAC 40 taking fifth place.

 “What the data shows is that it pays to look outside your own market when you’re investing and make sure you are well diversified across different stock exchanges, many of which have very different strengths.”

Table 1:  Countries in the 2023 Eurovision Stock Contest ranked in descending order