Catwalk to Profit With the Gisele Bündchen Index

Gisele Bündchen was the top-earning supermodel in 2006 with $33 million, according to Forbes magazine, and the stocks of companies connected to her pursuits have had a good 2007 so far.

Fred Fuld with stockerblog.com has developed a series of celebrity stock indices, specializing in actresses, singers and supermodels.

The Brazil native Bündchen is connected to several publicly traded companies, and Fuld has developed a Gisele Bündchen Stock Index, which has been implemented at stockpickr.com.

The Bündchen Index was up 15% during the last three months, substantially outperforming the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was up 8.2%.

So how much influence does a celebrity have on a company's sales? Here is an example. When C&A Brazil, a division of C&A, which is an international chain of clothing stores, hired her to star in their television commercials, the company's revenue increased by 30%.

Bündchen has been the face of numerous advertising campaigns, including Apple(AAPL Quote), appearing on the "Get a Mac" advertisements to promote its new line of Macintosh computers.

Is that why Apple continues to make new all-time highs? Apple has a P/E ratio of 45.5 and a P/E-to-growth ratio of 1.76.

Apple is also owned by George Soros, one of the world's most successful hedge fund managers. Soros also owns such fashion-company stocks as Coach(COH Quote), the famous handbag purveyor with a P/E of 29.7 and a PEG of 1.43, and the department store company, Bon-Ton Stores(BONT Quote), which has a P/E of 18.9 and a PEG of 0.73.