Let’s imagine we had a time machine, but this time machine would only allow us to go back 90 days – that’s it. So, we jump in our time machine, pull the green lever, push the special purple button, and zoom off we go. We open the door and find ourselves back in the first week of September.

What’s grabbing headlines? What’s filling our social media feed? What’s the conversation du jour at the coffee shops? Politics. The country will spend the next 60 days wondering how this 2020 election would play out and how the balance of power might shift one way or the other. Anxiety was high, and uncertainty was rampant.

Now, let’s imagine we went around polling folks to ask what they expected a November stock market to look like? This was that exact November that was sparking so much angst – it was THE election month. I am sure you would agree that most of our conversations would revolve around a pessimistic outlook for markets in November. This was the consensus opinion leading up to November.

Luckily, we are from the future, so we know what did happen, “It was the best November for the Dow since 1928 and the best November for the S&P since 1950. It was the best month, period, for the Dow since January 1987.” (David Bahnsen, The DC Today). Quite polarizing when we begin to compare the expectations and the actual outcome.

Was anyone optimistic about November? Sure, but those voices belonged to the minority and were probably drowned out by the somber majority. What do we call this minority that refuses to follow the herd? We call them contrarians.

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