An Examination of the Super Bowl Anomaly: Is it Spurious or Real?

Abstract

This abstract was created post-production by the JFI Editorial Board.

Is there any logical explanation of the Super Bowl phenomenon (anomaly)? In Koppett's own words: "What does all this mean? Absolutely nothing on any rational level-and that's exactly the point. Just because two sets of numbers coincide in some way, don't leap to the conclusion that one set 'causes' the other ... Statistics, always, are the starting point of an investigation, not the conclusion." The results tend to support Koppett's conclusion that the Super Bowl Stock Market Predictor was just spurious correlation after all. While it had a great run from 1967-1989 it fell apart in the last 15 years. One might speculate that once the phenomenon was documented it became a self-fulfilling prophesy. The three studies cited earlier in this work seem to support such a notion. But even if this was true there is no support for it now.