First, and foremost, we are a group of investors that have bonded over our passion to find undervalued, out-of-favor, contrarian opportunities, and we have a demonstrated track record of success, inclusive of wins and losses, both on the portfolio level, and on the individual stock picking level. Having said that, "The Contrarian" is not for everyone, and really only a select group of investors have the patience, fortitude, and perseverance to join our team. Adding to the narrative, trying to outperform the markets is a challenging endeavor over time, and the last decade has enhanced the challenge, as almost all investors have been shepherded into a narrow scope of investment strategies that are starting to show their inherent structural flaws.
Member testimonials say everything, and I encourage prospective members to read the member reviews and testimonials for the research presented. Here are a couple that I have highlighted.
Exceptional work
Unquestionably one of, if not, the best services on SA. The latter is what I'll go with. That said, if you can't have conviction in your thesis and ride (and add) when prices are working against you, this isn't for you. Very grateful for this group and the community Travis created.
- Posted As A Formal Review On January 24th, 2021
Life changing
I have never written a review of an investing service, although been on the receiving end of many over a number of decades. The Contrarian stands out alone among them all. Travis brings integrity and intellectual honesty and deep and relevant experience, none of which I have found anywhere else. His insights are so perceptive that my lack of such vision caused me to take a high powered magnifying glass to his description of AR. I was highly skeptical and slow on the uptake. What I found, and reconfirmed from multiple angles, allowed positioning in March/April which has been life changing. Ideas presented are well worth investigating. Chat is incredibly helpful and noise free.
- Posted As A Formal Review On January 21st, 2021
Separate the Forest from the Trees
Travis is one of the best writers on SA in my opinion. He stays true to his value orientation and contrarian roots and has guided his subscribers towards very profitable investments through the years. In addition, the group of contrarians are active in sharing ideas, analysis and investment philosophy which are valuable to both beginner and expert investors alike. One word of caution, this is not a service which will provide daily trade ideas / signals nor dozens of in-depth single stock research (although key focus investments are covered in great detail); it is however an invaluable resource to gain insights in undervalued sectors, understand deeper industry and company fundamentals and ultimately unearthing deep, multi-bagger value investment ideas. It is not hyperbole for me to say that this service has changed my life. Absolutely worth the subscription 10x over.
- Posted As A Formal Review On January 19th, 2021
From a bigger picture perspective, we are in the midst of multi-decade secular changes in the stock, bond, and commodity markets.
Most investors have spent their lifetimes not concerned about rising interest rates, or an inflationary investment environment, and there is a firm belief, because of the length of the previous bull market in global sovereign bonds, that lasted roughly 40 years, that interest rates will stay lower for longer for the foreseeable future. After all, there are strong arguments for this case, including debt, demographics, etc., but what if the market has already priced this in the past four decades?
Building on the narrative, what if "lower for longer" is over?
What if sovereign longer-term interest rates indeed bottomed in 2020?
What would that do for the future returns of stocks, bonds, and commodities?
Does the broader U.S. stock market look overvalued from a big picture view?
What were future stock returns when the market-cap-to-GDP ratio was at prior peaks in 1999/2000?
(Source: The Contrarian, GMO)
The answer, was poor real returns of course, as the 2000-2010 cumulative stock market return was among the poorest decade of returns (nominal, real would have been worse) in modern market history.
With today's valuations, the next decade of stock market returns is likely to be worse than the 2000-2010 returns.
What can you do as an investor?
The answer, is that you have to look for the undervalued sectors, and undervalued equities.
The good news, is that after a decade of growth stocks, particularly the "winner take all" mega-capitalization favorites, dominating, in terms of performance, there are a plethora of attractively priced value equities today.
At The Contrarian, we have a laser like focus that has led to some amazing opportunities. Here are two more testimonials.
"@KCI Research Ltd.
I want to thank you for your timely article on 2/19/2020 Antero Resources is A Generational Buy. Your article helped me reached a conclusion that AR would not file for BK. Soon after studying your article carefully, I started betting my farm ( funds from all my IRA accounts) on AR. 1/3 @1.83, 1/3 @1.40 and 1/3 @1.30. I accumulated about 500,000 shares of AR. Then AR fell to all time low of 0.67. A thought of cutting loss flashed in my mind. I overcame the fear eventually and stayed all the way up to now.
You helped me and my wife to be able to retire comfortably and help my children go to Universities. Thank you so much."
"I have accumulated over 96K shares from MAR 10th until 2 weeks ago (discussed stock is trading at $4.61 as I write this). My average price is $1.67. KCI research is the reason for this... Its about the thoroughness of research that led me to have the conviction to jump in.. I simply added his analysis coupled with understanding the ramifications of the oil price war and Covid on the Energy Sector. I wrote this to thank KCI for his insight, research and investing service which is outstanding..."
Examples like this are reason alone that it is worth taking at least a month membership to our premium research service, The Contrarian.
Like a good television infomercial, there is more...
While I certainly make mistakes, including significant ones, what I can offer though, is an unrivaled passion for researching & analyzing the financial markets, providing perspectives and experiences honed by over 25 years of actively investing and speculating, complimented by a nearly two decade professional career.
Building on this narrative, I probably have had bigger successes and bigger mistakes than most investors, providing an archived history of real world examples of "what to do" and "what not to do".
On this note, I have learned the hard way that being contrarian is really only suitable 20% of the time, and the rest of the time (80%), an investor wants to run with the herd. Today is not one of the time's to run with the herd, in my opinion.
These learning examples have continued since the December 7th, 2015 inception of The Contrarian, and there are now over five years of archived posts, including in-depth research, alongside model portfolio histories that chronicle the outstanding 2016, the challenging 2017-2019 years, and the revival in 2020 & 2021 for our group, where we have had success that is truly rare, both on the portfolio level, and at the individual stock level, with our generational buy call on Antero Resources (AR) resounding with many market participants, and our 2021 Top Idea Contest leading Peabody Energy (BTU) providing an encore idea that is still running.
Author's February 19th, 2020 Antero Resources Article (Author)
However, The Contrarian is not just about me, or the top-performing Model Portfolios, including the Best Ideas Equity Model Portfolio that returned 126.4% in 2016, before stumbling to a negative -7.3% return in 2019, when a melt-up engulfed the U.S. equity market, and left out some of the most undervalued stocks. In 2020 this portfolio finished up 51.1%, in 2021 it finished up 105.4%, and in 2022 it is higher by 69.3% through Friday, April 8th, 2022.
No, The Contrarian, really at its heart, is about our community of opportunistic investors looking for the most mis-priced securities in the market today, with community being the keyword.
It has been said that a picture says a thousand words, and I agree with that sentiment. Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I do not have a picture of our group that can convey the wisdom and collaborative nature of the research exchanged. Soon, perhaps we can have a group picture.
For now, though, I can say that I have never enjoyed a group more in my 25 plus years of investing and speculating, and I encourage you to see for yourself.
If you have any questions, about joining our group or anything else, send me a direct message,
Travis
