What Does the Super Bowl Portend for Your Portfolio?
Will your portfolio fly with the Falcons, or might it be 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 50 Super Bowls, in fact. Granted, for most of 2016 it might have looked as though it would be right again, following the AFC’s (and original AFL) Broncos 24-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers, who represented the NFC. It was an usual break in the streak that was sustained in 2015 following Super Bowl XLIX, when the New England Patriots (yes, those same Patriots) bested the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 to earn their fourth Super Bowl title. It also “worked” in 2014, when the Seahawks bumped off the Denver Broncos, a le...