YOUR MONEY ON BRONCOS OR MARKET? BET THE BIRDS IF YOU’RE A BULL, BECAUSE AFC BOWL VICTORY USUALLY BRINGS OUT THE BEARS

With Super Bowl Sunday around the corner, thoughts inevitably turn to beer, bookies and, for one band of offbeat believers, the SBMP.

The SBMP, or Super Bowl Market Predictor, is a bettor’s dream brew of sports, stats and stocks. The theory works like this: The stock market goes up in years following a win by a team from the old National Football League or the current National Football Conference. But if an American Football Conference team triumphs — excluding the Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, the Baltimore Ravens (nee Cleveland Browns) and the Pittsburgh Steelers, all members of the pre-merger NFL — then the market tanks.

In other words, Go Falcons!

The NFC’s Atlanta Falcons may be a long shot, but, according to SBMP, they’re our best bet for another bull market in ’99. Still, the back-to-back AFC champion Denver Broncos bucked the SBMP just last year — their Super Bowl win sent the market up. Greedy fans hope they pull it off again.

wants it both ways

“I want it all — an up market and a Bronco win,” says Denver financial planner (and Bronco fan) Dennis Means.

Notwithstanding last year’s bust, the SBMP is a pretty darn good predictor. It’s been on the money in 28 out of 32 Super Bowls, giving it a groundhog-beating 88% accuracy rate. Come to think of it, SBMP probably beats gambling on Alan Greenspan’s whims too.

“Last year was a disappointment, but you’ve still got to feel better if you’re on the right side of this thing,” says chief SBMP booster Robert Stovall, who has been tracking the phenomenon since 1979.

Mr. Stovall, president of New York investment firm Stovall/Twenty-First Advisers, which manages $1 billion in assets, notes that the odds do favor SBMP. Historically, the stock market has gone up more years than it has gone down, and 18 of the 30 current teams are in the NFC or were in the old NFL.

Still, that hardly explains SBMP’s uncanny accuracy.

“What can you say? It works. Frankly, it works a lot better than a lot of so-called reasonable theories,” says Mr. Means, who teaches SBMP — among other stock market predictors — as part of an investment class at a local community college.

“It’s tongue and cheek, of course. Well, partly it is.”