Stocks Swayed by the Super Bowl?
Will your portfolio soar with the Seahawks, or get pummeled by the Patriots? That’s what adherents of the so-called Super Bowl Theory would likely predict. 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, whereas 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 38 of the 48 Super Bowls, in fact. It certainly “worked” in 2014, when these same Seattle Seahawks bumped the Broncos, a legacy AFL team, and in 2013, when a dramatic fourth quarter comeback rescued a victory by the Baltimore Ravens who, though representing the AFC, are technically a legacy NFL team via their Cleveland Browns roots. Admittedly, that the markets fared well in 2013 was hardly a true test of the Super Bowl Theory since, as it turned out, both teams in Super Bowl XLVII — the Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers — were ...