Chinese Zodiac Indicator and Super Bowl Indicator

银河金星

The Year of the Ox: Carrying a heavy load through 2009
By John Nyaradi, Wall Street Sector Selector  Monday, February 2, 2009

Last week, investors alternately felt hope and despair as the markets continued their wild gyrations. January is already ranked in the Top 100 of volatile years and so as the Year of the Ox gets underway, investors around the world are looking for clues as to what might be in store for us as we move through 2009.

Asian markets were closed early in the week for Chinese New Year as the Year of the Ox was ushered in with fireworks and great fanfare. And this week marks the beginning of the seemingly never ending hype leading up to Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Both Chinese New Years and the Super Bowl are good diversions and escape from the economic problems of the world, and stock market prognosticators have developed interesting forecasting models around both events.

Are “Ox Years” good or bad for us as investors? What might it mean if Arizona or Pittsburgh wins this week’s Super Bowl?

Beast of Burden or Just a Beast?

Ox years are earth years, and therefore 2009 should be a calmer year than 2008. According to Raymond Lo, a feng shui master quoted in Reuter’s, the year of the ox will be the most peaceful year globally since 2000, but without a fire element, there will be no motivator to make stock prices rise. However, according to Lo, the stock market will still be at low levels approaching the end of the year which would be a good time to buy ahead of the recovery in 2010 which is the Year of the Tiger, one of the strongest symbols in the Chinese zodiac.

People born in Ox years, “Ox people,” tend to be serious and hardworking, and famous ox people include Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, and, lo and behold, Barack Obama.

And lest you think this is a bunch of hocus pocus, well known Japanese research company, the Daiwa Institute, issued a report that the Nikkei Index fell on average more than 11% during the five most recent ox years.

AFC vs NFC

Now turning our attention westward, let’s take a look at the Super Bowl indicator.

This weekend, as usual, the country will come to a standstill and forget, at least for a moment, about “bad banks,” layoffs, earnings disappointments and fiscal bailouts to enjoy the unofficial national holiday of Super Bowl Sunday.

In time honored tradition, we’ll watch teams from the American Football League and the National Football League play for a “world championship” in a sport that’s only played in America. However, the Super Bowl does have global implications in the fact that the “Super Bowl Indicator” does have a remarkable accuracy rate for predicting subsequent stock market action and so it’s worth at least as much consideration as the usual pageantry and excess of the Super Bowl halftime show.

The Super Bowl Indicator is based on the uncanny reality that in years when a team from the old NFC wins, the stock market rises during the following year, and that in years when a team from the old AFC wins, the stock market falls. Going all the way back to the beginning, the Super Bowl Indicator has been right 33 out of 42 times for a 79% success rate.

Last year, in case you’ve forgotten, as I had, the New York Giants won in a dramatic fourth quarter finish and so the stock market should have had an up year. Alas, like so many other things that failed in 2008, the Super Bowl Indicator failed to show us the way to higher prices for 2008.

But the good news is that both teams in the Super Bowl this year are from the old NFC.

Could this mean that it’s 100% certain that the market will be up for the year? We can only hope that 2009 will be the year that this well known indicator returns to its winning ways.

January has started out to be a tough month, just as tough as 2008’s grinding close. But with trillions of dollars of government stimulus and bailouts working their way through the system, one must consider the fact that sometime, sooner or later, all this money should turn things around, or at the very least, slow the deterioration, so we can finally see some light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

The Ox says 2008 will be lackluster, at best, and the Super Bowl says the market has nowhere to go up, so let’s hope for the best and have a great Super Bowl Sunday and 2009.

xiaobailong

Barack Obama牛年本命年？

xiaobailong

And lest you think this is a bunch of hocus pocus, well known Japanese research company, the Daiwa Institute, issued a report that the Nikkei Index fell on average more than 11% during the five most recent ox years.

李隆基

2010Barack Obama有可能被暗杀!

oldfat

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