Woohoo! As of yesterday’s NFL performance, I became the first person in my fantasy football league to secure a playoff spot (8-2-1). My record after 4 complete seasons has been quite impeccable. 4 complete years, 4 playoffs (now 5 for 5), 4 championship games, and 3 championships. I have also noticed many similarities that exist between managing a fantasy football team and picking stocks.
For those that don’t know, fantasy football basically allows you to draft and control your own team as though you were the owner of an NFL team. You get points for how your players do. For more about fantasy football read here.
Potential Breakout v. Reliable
When first creating your team via the draft you need to decide what type of players you are going for. Do you want players that have the potential of breaking out big numbers on some occasions, someone, who might not be able put out huge numbers, but they will get you solid outings every week, or a mixture of both?
Correlation to stock market: When first creating your portfolio you must also determine what type of stocks you want. The riskier stocks with the potential to pop and drop (think Pharmaceuticals) or the safer picks that might not shoot up as much, but they are more reliable (think Microsoft, Kraft. You must also do research before investing in stocks. The same also goes for picking players. You might not want to invest in a player that has the tendency to get injured.
In both the stock market and fantasy football you can easily live and die by your potential breakout picks. If they do good, then everything is alright, but these picks can very easily not do anything and hurt you.
Managing and Adjusting
Most owners at some point and time will need to adjust their rosters by conducting trades or picking players off the free waiver list. Maybe you see potential in another player not on your team or maybe one of your players is just not cutting it. Either way changes need to be made.
Correlation to stock market: Just like fantasy football everybody needs to manage and update their stock portfolio. It is obvious that the market will change and stocks/players will be hot and cold. If you leave your team and portfolio untouched, then most likely it wont end up very good in the long-term.
So maybe it is my connection to the stock market that is making me successful in fantasy football. After analyzing some of the processes I was going through, I realized that I was utilizing my stock picking abilities without knowing it.
Have you seen these or other correlations in your fantasy football experiences? Are there other aspects of life that you see a correlation to the stock market?