Contrarian Success

I just read this in a story on the Motley Fool web pages. While I tend to be skeptical of Wall Street views and have sort of hoped I was a bit of a contrarian investor, this fact shocked even me.

In fact, in every single year of the new millennium, stocks rated "sell" by Wall Street have outperformed stocks rated "buy" or "hold." From 2000 to 2004, stocks that the Street told you to sell rose 19% per annum on average. Meanwhile, the "buys" and "holds" rose just 7%.