Chapter 7

Sheep Dogs and Other Contrarians

I sometimes think that speculation must be an unnatural sort of business, because I find that the average speculator has arrayed against him his own nature.

—Jesse Livermore, How to Trade in Stocks1

People began lining up in the rain hours before Target’s Buffalo store opened for business on Black Friday 2010. At 4:00 A.M., manager Ben Gregory unlocked the doors, and a torrent of shoppers poured in. Keith Krantz, who had been waiting eight hours for a chance to buy a sale-priced flat-screen TV, was pinned against the metal door frame in the surge, then shoved to the ground. He screamed in pain as shoppers stepped over, around, and on him in their frenzy to snatch up bargains. Keith thought at that moment ...

Get The Janus Factor: Trend Follower's Guide to Market Dialectics now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.