The Super Bowl and the stock market

There exists a quirky theory known as the Super Bowl Stock Market Predictor (some call it an indicator) connecting the big game with stock market performance. The theory is that whenever an original NFL team wins the Super Bowl, the stock market will end the year up; whenever an original AFL team wins, the market will end down. The NFL's two conferences, NFC and AFC, for the most part split closely along the lines of the old leagues with three exceptions — the Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers, which originally were NFL teams but now reside in the AFC. The predictor has evolved somewhat as the correlation seems to work for all NFC expansion teams like the Seattle Seahawks, which will play the New England Patriots on Feb. 1. Through 2014, accuracy of the predictor was 81%. See the last decade of Super Bowl winners and S&P 500 returns. Pictured: The six Vince Lombardi Trophies of the Pittsburgh Steelers, which holds the record for the most Super Bowl victories.

Winner: Seattle SeahawksNFC team via expansionMarkets: Up

Winner: Baltimore RavensAFC team, but the Ravens trace its lineage to the original Cleveland Browns, which was an NFL team before the 1970 mergerMarkets: Up