The Super Bowl Indicator is a spurious correlation that says that the stock market's performance in a given year can be predicted based on the outcome of the Super Bowl of that year. It was "discovered" by Leonard Koppett in 1978 when he realized that it had never been wrong, until that point. This pseudo-macroeconomic concept states that if a team from the American Football Conference (AFC) wins, then it will be a bear market (or down market), but if a team from the National Football Conference (NFC) or a team that was in the NFL before the NFL/AFL merger wins, it will be a bull market (up market). As of January 2022, the predictor had been right 41 out of 55 games, a 75% success rate. Without retrospective predictions, i.e. after its invention in 1978, it had been correct in 29 out of 43 games, a success rate of 67%.
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Statistical significance The Super Bowl Indicator is generally treated as an example of a spurious correlation rather than a reliable forecasting method. Although the indicator appeared to have a high historical success rate in its early years, later analysis has found that its predictive performance weakened substantially after it became widely known. The indicator has no generally accepted economic mechanism connecting the outcome of a football game with stock-market returns. It is therefore usually cited as a reminder that historical correlations can occur by chance and should not be used as a basis for investment decisions.
See also January barometer Calendar effect
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