Of all the rituals of finance most ripe for disruption by artificial intelligence, few are as deserving as the quadrennial spectacle of sell-side World Cup analysis. Like clockwork, the world’s biggest banks deploy teams of economists and quants to divine the tournament’s champion and tally the macroeconomic spoils. Thousands of pages and reams of data visualisations later*, they reach a conclusion a chatbot could have supplied for free: host the tournament, or field a side in the final rounds, and enjoy a modest, fleeting bump to gross domestic product as fans throng the bars. No bank reliably picks the winner; none beats the bookmakers.

For those hedging currency exposure, the more useful lesson may not lie in who lifts the trophy but in what happens when a nation watches. The tournament begins on June 11th, spread across the United States, Mexico and Canada, offering ample scope for distraction. Studying the 2010 finals, economists at the European Central Bank found that when a national side took the pitch during trading hours, trades on its home stock exchange fell by 45% and volumes by 55%; each goal pared activity further. A separate study of 95 matches across 24 countries between 2002 and 2018 found that discretionary volumes spiked in the 90 minutes before kick-off, as traders rushed to square positions, then fell during play and afterwards as fans celebrated (or worked through the five stages of grief) with the assistance of copious amounts of beer.

Human traders play a smaller role in foreign-exchange markets, where algorithms executing on electronic venues, indifferent to the glories of the game**, should mean volumes decline by less. But a number of this year’s key fixtures are scheduled to land during liquidity lulls—during the handoff from North America to Asia, for instance—and the effects on some currency pairs could be meaningful.

Prudent hedgers need not turn punter. But squaring up by putting positions in place before kick-off might be the closest a CFO gets to rivalling Dibu’s reflexes—and filling a large automated order in thin markets while dealing rooms are glued to their television screens might feel like pulling off an Mbappé bicycle kick.

So let the banks publish their forecasts and the chatbots their free ones; neither will tell you who hoists the trophy. The edge this summer might lie not in divining the champion but in remembering that liquidity—like a back four—is thinnest when everyone is watching the ball.

*Admittedly, these things are absolute catnip for the world’s financial media.

**I may be underestimating the computers. Bill Shankly, former Liverpool manager, once said “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that”.