Contrarian

Quick Summary of Contrarian

A person who opposes or rejects popular opinion, especially in stock exchange dealing.

An investor who behaves in opposition to the prevailing wisdom; for example, buying when others are pessimistic and selling when they’re optimistic, or buying out-of-favor stocks. In an extended bull market, the term contrarian can begin to mean someone who is bearish or prefers value stocks to growth stocks, although this is really just a subset of contrarian investing.

Simply put, a contrarian is an investor who makes investments that are contrary to current market sentiment. For example, if energy stocks are currently all the rage and health care stocks are out of favour, the contrarian will purchase health care issues and avoid energy issues. The contrarian’s thinking is that stocks which are out-of-favour today are underpriced and therefore represent excellent value. When a currently out-of-favour stock swings back into favour in the future and its price rises to reflect its true value, the contrarian will be poised to profit. While taking a contrarian position in the market can be profitable in the long run, many investors find it difficult to ‘buck the trend’ and adopt a contrarian market philosophy. Contrarian investors use fluctuations in market sentiment to create long-term profits.

Contrarian investing is based on two primary ideas. First, contrarians believe that conventional wisdom and the actions of most investors are based on emotions, especially fear and greed. During a market crisis or a company scandal, for example, many investors will, out of fear or the pessimistic momentum of the crowd, sell their investments regardless of the intrinsic value of the company.

Similarly, during bull market runs, many investors will, through greed and the optimistic momentum of the crowd, buy securities that have seen their prices run up regardless of the intrinsic value of the company.

In both cases, crowd behavior can have the effect of mispricing stocks away from the value of the underlying company.

Second, contrarians generally eschew short-term investing for long-term buy-and-hold investing because it produces better real returns over time. Under this theory, investors buy shares of companies, not stocks, and focus on buying companies that are undervalued. Therefore, they tend to buy during periods of market panic (which have driven stock prices down below a rational assessment of the company), and they tend to sell during bull market runs, when stock prices often greatly exceed any underlying assessment of the company’s value.

Contrarians often buy out-of-favor companies or companies in out-of-favor industries.

Warren Buffett, a famous contrarian investor, once summed up this investing philosophy by saying that investors should be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.

A classic example of contrarian investing occurred when Buffett purchased roughly $13 million worth of American Express shares after the stock had dropped nearly 50% in the wake of the salad oil scandal of 1963. The company’s operations had not changed, and the stock tripled over the following two years.

Although it appears that contrarian investors are responding solely to the actions of the crowd, they are more likely to be responding to the mispricing opportunities created by short-term events and emotionally-driven investing, much like value investors.

Examples of Contrarian in a sentence

I have been very successful as a contrarian investor purchasing stocks at bargain prices when they are no longer in favor.

My hedge fund manager usually tries to do the opposite of what the masses are doing, and he usually invests as a contrarian, buying when others are selling.

The rogue investor’s contrarian views enabled him to take advantage of a bull market that was blindsided by economic peril as he shorted heavily in the months prior.

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