>Story Stocks

The big stories of 2013 were Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors (NASD:TSLA) and Solar City (NASD:SCTY), up 306 percent and 350 percent respectively.  As a value-focused contrarian investor, I’ve long known that there will be many years when story stocks outperform, but they also have a tendency to fall rapidly from their peaks.  Tesla has already fallen 30 percent from its peak over the last two months.  A contrarian eschews such spectacular gains in order to avoid the rapid declines that come to such story stocks on the slightest bit of bad news.  

Even if 2014 were to be another year led by other story stocks, I would not consider that reason to abandon my contrarian strategy.  Missing the rapid rise of stock you don’t own is not a loss, although it may feel like it to people who focus overmuch on the headlines.  If holding a contrarian investing stance were emotionally easy, everyone would be doing it.<