I wrote more articles about Apple than almost any other company over the last five years. For a long time it was one of the most hated stocks on Wall Street, and when we bought it for the first time in 2013, an outraged client wrote me an email calling our purchase “irresponsible” – which motivated me to write not just one but two articles on Apple (one, two). As I discuss in the following article, for a value investor it is easier to love stocks that are hated and more difficult to love stocks that are loved. Love is usually expensive, and the infatuation gets reflected in a company’s valuation. Hate, or near hate, is cheap.
Being contrarian – taking a position that goes against the grain of commonly held opinion – is not easy and not comfortable. Humans take comfort in consensus. We love it when the crowd agrees with us. However, being contrarian for the sake of being different is idiotic and dangerous. People don’t normally step in front of moving trains; being contrarian in this regard would make little sense. When it comes to investing, being contrarian means trusting and following through on the findings of your research, whether you agree or disagree with the crowd.
|
|
I am the CIO at Investment Management Associates, which is anything but your average investment firm. (Seriously, take a look.) I wrote two books on investing, which were published by John Wiley & Sons and have been translated into eight languages. (Polish is one of them – go figure.) In a brief moment of senility, Forbes magazine called me “the new Benjamin Graham.” (They must have been impressed by the eloquence of the Polish translation.) Not receiving my investment articles? Sign up here. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
_______________________________________________
Asean-fh mailing list
Asean-fh@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/asean-fh