Nevin's Data "Points"

Will your 401(k) be bitten by the Bengals—or rally with the Rams? That’s what adherents of the so-called Super Bowl Indicator [i]  would likely conclude, after all. It’s a “theory” that when a team from the old National Football League wins the Super Bowl, the S&P 500 will rise, and when a team from the old American Football League prevails, stock prices will fall. It’s a “theory” that has been found to be correct nearly 80% of the time—for 41 of the 55 Super Bowls, in fact. And sure enough, last year’s win by the NFC’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers provided support for that notion, as the S&P 500 gained ground.   Not that it hasn’t had its shortcomings. One need look back no further than the previous year’s win by the AFC’s (and original AFL) Kansas City Chiefs over the then-NFC Champion San Francisco 49ers to refute the applicability (or did your 401(k) miss that 18.4% rise in the S&P 500?). Or how about the year before that when the AFC’s New England Pat...

Will your portfolio rise with the Rams – or get pummeled by the Patriots? That’s what adherents of the so-called Super Bowl Theory would likely conclude. The Super Bowl Theory holds that when a team from the old National Football League wins the Super Bowl, the S&P 500 will rise, and when a team from the old American Football League prevails, stock prices will fall. It’s a “theory” that has been found to be correct nearly 80% of the time – for 40 of the 52 Super Bowls, in fact. Not that it hasn’t had its shortcomings. One need look back no further than last year’s win by the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles against the AFC Champion Patriots (who once were the AFL’s Boston Patriots) to find an instance where it turned out to be a loser, market-wise, with the S&P 500 down more than 6% (though for most of the year it was quite a different story). Ditto the year before when the epic comeback by those same AFC Champion Patriots against the NFC champion Atlanta Fa...