Super Bowl 2026

The last piece of confetti hit the floor at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California (home of the San Francisco 49ers) settling one of the least talked about market indicators: the Super Bowl Indicator. As Atlas wiped away the nacho cheese that spilled onto the counter, euphoria was present. The NFC’s Seattle Seahawks won the Lombardi. That must mean good things for the US markets…Right?

According to this time-honored “theory,” if a team from the old National Football League (now the NFC) wins the big game, stocks are more likely to perform positively. But if the winner comes from the American Football League (now the AFC), the odds are less favorable. In short, if America’s markets have a banner year, we’ll all have to thank the game’s MVP Kenneth Walker and the suffocating-style of the “Dark Side” defense.

While Atlas doesn’t want to rain on Seattle’s Super Bowl Parade, this is a spurious correlation. It’s a pattern that looks impressive with a back test but contains no causal mechanisms to validate it. There have been plenty of years when markets fall after a season in which the NFC wins, and thankfully during the AFC Patriot’s Brady-era, there were years when the market rose after he lifted the Lombardi. His record spanned everything from a deep bear market in 2002 to a strong finish when he played with the Buccaneers in 2021. Oh wait, the Bucs are an NFC team. Well, his final Super Bowl as a Patriot in 2019 ushered in a decent market.

Fun narratives make for enjoyable conversation, but careful monitoring keeps Atlas from being distracted by loud pops and colorful confetti. In the end, the Super Bowl Indicator is a great reminder of all the noise in the marketplace. Markets are complex systems with changing dynamics that alter correlations and require more attention than commercial breaks during the big game.