Are Stocks Swayed by the Super Bowl?
Will your portfolio soar with the Eagles, 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 51 Super Bowls, in fact. Though last year’s big comeback by the AFC Champion Patriots (who once were the AFL’s Boston Patriots) against the then-NFC champion Atlanta Falcons — alongside the 2017 market surge — surely places its validity in question. Not to mention 2016, and the AFC’s (and original AFL) Broncos 24-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers, who represented the NFC. It was an unusual break in the streak that was sustained in 2015 following Super Bowl XLIX, when the New England Patriots (yes, those ...