The contrarian contrarianist approach

The stock market was acting a little strange today, with the Dow jumping more than 100 points this morning and then pulling back, back, back, to close with a mere 37 point gain. The S&P 500 actually fell a couple of points. Which, of course, raises that inevitable question: Where is thing going? As noted by Market Beat, the conventional wisdom says that the market is headed for a correction, which means the contrarians believe that the rally will continue. The problem is that too many people have accepted this "contrarian" viewpoint. So maybe the answer is to be a contrarian contrarianist. "That is," according to David Gaffen, "if too many people are saying it’s contrarian to be bullish and therefore, it’s time to be bearish, mentioning this in a markets blog reverses that double-negative and puts the market back in the bullish scenario again. Think about that." I'd rather not. Amgen watch: Our struggling biotech/drug company recovered a bit after this morning's tumble, but still was down 3.7 percent for the day.