Why Wall Street Should Root for a Boring MLB All-Star Game

Here in Cincinnati, All-Star Fever is palpable, especially after Reds 3B Todd Frazier's hometown Home Run Derby win last night -- a feat not accomplished since the last time the Reds won the World Series. We know the All-Star Game -- set to take place at Great American Ballpark tonight -- has home-field-advantage implications for the World Series, but does it also have implications for Wall Street? It seems so. 

The All-Star Game has been a tradition since 1933. There have been just two ties, and there was no game in 1945 because of WWII. 

After crunching the numbers, Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White determined that the S&P 500 Index (SPX) does significantly better when the National League wins the All-Star Game -- a feat that's happened 43 times, compared to 40 American League wins. In fact, the SPX averages a rest-of-year return of 4.36% -- nearly triple the average of 1.61% after an American League victory.

But don't just root for a National League win tonight. You should also hope for a relatively boring game. When there are five or fewer runs scored in the All-Star Game, the SPX has averaged a rest-of-year return of 6.4%, and has been positive 80% of the time! For comparison, the broad-market barometer averages a 2.6% return after games with 6-9 runs, and just a 0.2% return following games with 10 or more runs.