Do not be an unthinking contrarian

​The obvious answer to the question ‘When should I buy?’ is when all the painstaking research stacks up, and the company looks a good bet.  The problem is, there are investors who buck the trend and act contrary to the general consensus.  These contrarians zig when everyone else is zagging, but the true contrarian does not simply take the opposing view just to be different.  He is actually acting intelligently by choosing to zig when he understands that the stock market has got it wrong and zagged.
He can succeed by waiting for the excitement to die down, and then investing in companies that nobody is interested in any more, especially those companies that have begun to bore the analysts.
Investors should not rely on their gut feelings; they should learn to ignore them, and continue with trying to understand the fundamentals of the company under investigation.
Investing without research is like playing stud poker and never looking at the cards.
Shares should not be bought because they are the next of something, such as the next Microsoft or the next Disney:  they almost never are what they promise.
Nor should investors be influenced by compani