Consider the following aspects to thinking contrary to the crowd:
1) You cannot be a full time contrarian. Why? The crowd is actually right most of the time. Remember, they are what moves markets, why equities go up, why a pop song becomes a #1 hit. Indeed, the crowd is why indexing works.
2) This gets reflected in such cliches as "Don't fight the tape" and "The Trend is your friend;" The crowd is neither right nor wrong, but instead is its own truth, a self fulfilling prophesy. This leads to some unexpected outcomes.
3) Beware extremes: The crowd will take markets much higher and much lower than they should go based on reasonable, logical common sense metrics.
4) There is safety in numbers. No one gets fired for groupthink. In every nature documentary that you have ever seen, its the gazelle at the edge of the herd that the lions devour. The rest of the herd is safely huddled together. Thats the anti-contrarian lesson (if your a gazelle)
5) Whenever the crowd loves or hates something, it worth noting. That's when contrarians are the ones who will make a giant score. Think short-sellers in Enron or Tyco, or the buyers of tech stocks in late 2002.
6) Where Contrarians shine is when the crowd morphs into an angry mob. Once the bulls become convinced the market is invincible, their full throated cries will be readily apparent. So too, the bears, usually in the depths of a recession.
7) It is worthwhile to quantify consensus vs variant perception -- rather than rely on gut feelings. A few years ago, I put together a guide to the Contrary Indicators of the 2000-03 Bear Market. It outlines both the anecdotal AND the measurable contrary signals (and 2003 was a great buying opportunity). Use both the anecdotal and quantitative approaches in concert.
8) The idea of Variant Perception is that when most investors know something, it is already built into the stock price. Therefore, going along with the crowd will not generate alpha or above market performance.
9) Consensus equals closet indexing. While I favor indexing for many investors, investing with the consensus can be more expensive. The cheaper way to achieve the end goal of consensus investing at a lower cost is to simply buy and hold index funds.
10) Forget forcasting: Most people do not even understand the present with any precision or accuracy. There's a reason for that: there are powerful interests with a vested stake in presenting the world in a certain way. Their spin on events serves their own narrow purpose, often to the detriment of the public. (Hence, my tendency to push back and be skeptical of what I am spoonfed).
I include in this group of malevolent spinners the Politicans, Wall Street (especially bulge bracket firms) , Government data sources, big Mutual Funds, Media, and Industry spokesgroups.
