The Super Bowl has done it again.

As illogical as it sounds, for seven years in a row the outcome of the game has foretold the stock market’s direction for the year. Overall, this now has happened after 40 of the 49 Super Bowls, for an 82% completion rate.

Up or down, it is a phenomenon known as the Super Bowl Predictor, and some say its longtime guardian, who is nearly 90 years old (four decades older than the Super Bowl itself), should be in the Hall of Fame by now, either of investing or football.

Wall Street analyst Robert H. Stovall actually is the first to admit that the Predictor has no scientific basis. Still, academics have studied it. And Wall Street has a tradition of quirky indicators, perhaps because serious indicators fail so often.

Read the article “Analyist Uses Super Bowl to Predict Stock Market’s Direction” on wsj.com.