Sports fans are counting the minutes until Sunday's Super Bowl.
But, does your portfolio have rooting interests, too?
If you're an investor, you might want to back the New England Patriots, says Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak and self-avowed mega Pats fan.
"If you look at the time when the Patriots lose the Super Bowl, the three times, that year the S&P sees an average loss of over 10 percent and yet in the years they win, it's actually seen a slight gain," Maley said on CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday.
When the Pats lost the Super Bowl in 2008 and 2018, the fell by 38 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Its 2012 losing game drags the average up as the S&P 500 rose by 13 percent.
"It's even more compelling for the Rams," Maley continues. "If you're rooting for the Rams, you're pretty much guaranteeing a fall of either 10 to 20 percent in the stock market."
"Guarantee" and "average" might be too strong a word for the correlation, Maley admits.
"When I talk about the NFL, I'm kind of like a politician. I don't want to confuse people with the facts. I just give them my version of the facts," he said.
The Patriots have another market watcher in their corner: Michael Bapis, managing director of Vios Advisors at Rockefeller Capital.
"I think you have to go with the Pats for a couple different reasons," he said on the segment. "The gods are just on their side so we're hoping those same gods will shine on the S&P 500 for the year. But also, in the Brady and Belichick era, in their wins, the market is up an average of 3.5 percent and in their losses, it's over 8.5 percent down."
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has been with the team since 2000 and has led it to five Super Bowl victories. Bill Belichick has been head coach over the same stretch.
But if you're not a Pats fan, there's something else that could happen on the field that may portend a solid market return this year, says Bapis.
"With the exception of last year, when the score goes over 46, the markets are up over 16 percent in that same year," said Bapis. "We're rooting I guess for the Pats, and we're definitely rooting for the over."
Aside from 2018, the last five times the Super Bowl scoreboard has totaled more than 46, the S&P 500 has risen by an average 12 percent.
Disclosure: Maley and Bapis agree this Super Bowl indicator is not a reliable investment thesis and does not constitute financial advice.
