Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Indicator

In 2019, Sports Illustrated magazine caused all sorts of murmurs when it announced it would have not one, not two, but three separate covers for its annual and much-loved swimsuit edition. Tyra Banks, Camille Kostek, and Alex Morgan were each featured on their own SI cover, which made collectors and enthusiasts murmur happily, but led some investors to murmur in confused anticipation instead.

Why confusion? Because of the “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Indicator,” of course. This indicator uses the nationality of SI’s cover model to predict how the S&P 500 is going to behave. If the model is American, the S&P is expected to do well. If she’s not American, it’s expected to do...not as well. This indicator dates back to 1978, and generally speaking, it tends to be fairly accurate. There are outliers, like in 2008 when American model Marissa Miller was on the cover and we still plummeted headfirst into recession, but for the most part, American cover model = above average S&P performance. Crazy, right?

Now the big question on everyone’s minds in 2019 was this: would having three American cover models boost the S&P into the stratosphere, or would they all cancel each other out and leave the S&P—and its investors—murmuring in despair?