ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701280126
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: BRIEFLY PUT . . .
ODDS ARE, more than a few friendly - and maybe a few not-so-friendly - wagers are being laid on the outcome of Sunday's Super Bowl.
We think gambling is a mistake. But if you're in a betting mood anyway, here's another idea: the stock market.
In a Wall Street Journal piece Friday, Michael Castera and A. Craig Copetas noted that the final score of the Super Bowl has been a remarkably good predictor of whether the Dow Jones Industrial Average will be up or down by the end of the year.
Of the 11 years in which the American Football Conference (or, in the early years, American Football League) champ has won the game, the Dow has finished down in 10. Of the 19 years in which the National Football Conference has won the game, the Dow has finished up in 17.
That, Castera and Copetas observe, is a 90 percent success rate in foreseeing the market trend.
The real trick, of course, is to place a winning stock-market bet before the game, when you do not yet know whether NFC champ Green Bay or AFC champ New England is the winner. True, Green Bay is a two-touchdown favorite. But in football, like the market, past performance is no guarantee of future return.
Look what happened to the Bears.
LENGTH: Short : 32 linesby CNB