23/07/2021
The Contrarian Way—Blood in the Streets
Even the most unadventurous investor knows that there comes a time when you must buy, not because everyone is getting in on a good thing but because everyone is getting out.
Just as great athletes go through slumps when many fans turn their backs, the stock prices of otherwise great companies occasionally go through slumps, which accelerate as fickle investors bail out. As Baron Rothschild supposedly once said, smart investors "buy when there is blood in the streets, even if the blood is their own."
Nobody is arguing that you should buy garbage stocks. The point is that there are times when good investments become oversold, which presents a buying opportunity for investors who have done their homework.
The classic barometers used to gauge whether a stock may be oversold are the company's price-to-earnings ratio and book value. Both measures have well-established historical norms for both the broad markets and for specific industries. When companies slip well below these historical averages for superficial or systemic reasons, smart investors smell an opportunity to double their money.