There’s little more heartening to those who see the world through a free market lens than two companies from different countries teaming up to leverage their respective skills on a joint economic venture. Last week’s announcement that MGM and GVC would be combining their efforts to offer online sports betting, casino games and poker to consumers in the United States just shows that there is so little need for the political elite to rule so many aspects of our lives. We can handle things just fine, even if we’re from different countries.

In a world poisoned by trade wars and the curse of economic nationalism, joint ventures across oceans provides a ray of hope when even economic cooperation itself (trade) is viewed as a competitive “war” by our leaders. The basis for the combined effort, happily, was actually the repeal of a bad law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), not the passing of a new one. Judging by the pretentious name of the law itself, one would think that professional and amateur sports in the US will now implode from lack of protection. Something tells me they’ll do just fine.

In theory and eventually in practice, the MGM-GVC combo should yield great results. It’s exciting, that’s for sure. The press release was full of mouth-watering statistics of addressable markets and impressive brand history. There is nothing to lament in the deal itself. The question is, should you buy MGM or GVC on the back of the news?

Despite the deal being a big positive long term, I can’t see any reason why the news should trigger a buy signal on either stock specifically now. The reaction to the news is more important than the news itself in a shaky environment for equities like this one. Take a look at MGM stock on the announcement. MGM climbed a dollar one day after the press release of the joint venture, and then promptly fell 4 dollars the next trading day. GVC climbed to all time highs on the announcement and then fell as well.