As an investor, it doesn't pay to follow the crowd.

In this series, though, we highlight a possible exception -- the collective wisdom of our CAPS community. Read the next section if you're unfamiliar with our methodology. Skip it if you want to go straight to the results.

Why this crowd is different
Jumping into a stock because your rich neighbor did, or because you heard about it from your friend's uncle who used to work on Wall Street, or because CNBC has been talking about it nonstop is a recipe for disaster.

If there's one thing I've learned as a stock analyst, it's that any stock can be gussied up to sound like a world-beater. If there's a second thing I've learned, it's that being a smart person doesn't make you a good investor.

In the hands of a smart person with good communication skills, the never-were and never-will-be stocks sound like tickets to instant fortune. The ancient Greek philosophers made the distinction between rhetoric and knowledge. The former is convincing; the latter is true.

That's why we factor in track record in our Motley Fool CAPS community. We invite everyone to give stocks an outperform (akin to a "buy" call) or underperform rating (akin to a "sell" call) in CAPS. We then use those opinions to calculate a rating for each stock -- from one to five stars (five being the best). But -- and this is a big distinction -- we give more weight to the opinions of folks whose picks have performed well in the past.

The most hated stocks in consumer durables
So with that methodology as prelude, I present to you every one- and two-star consumer durables stock with a market capitalization more than $100 million and 50 or more underperform ratings. Remember, stocks are rated on a five-star scale by our CAPS community, so one- and two-star stocks are consensus underperforms. The stocks are listed in order of number of underperform picks.

Company Name

 Market Capitalization (in millions)

52-Week Price Change %

Price-to-Earnings (TTM)

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Underperform Picks

Sony (NYSE: SNE)

             $29,073

6%

121.1

**

438

Select Comfort (Nasdaq: SCSS)

                $330

85%

5.2

**

346

Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK)

                $994

(28%)

3.6

*

269

La-Z-Boy (NYSE: LZB)

                $350

(27%)

11.6

*

147

REX American Resources

                $132

23%

8.8

*

147

Home System Group

                $277

64%

21.6

*

133

Brunswick (NYSE: BC)

              $1,227

44%

NM

*

132

Furniture Brands International (NYSE: FBN)

                $241

(17%)

NM

*

94

Whirlpool (NYSE: WHR)

              $5,907

18%

10.9

**

83

Sealy

                $242

(8%)

23

**

79

SCP Pool

                $961

(21%)

42.2

*

70

Ethan Allen Interiors

                $400

(10%)

NM

*

59

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.

Some of the above companies have good stock price run-ups over the past year and some have been brought down a notch. One company that caught my eye is Eastman Kodak. It's notable that a company that's down 28% over the past year and has a trailing P/E ratio of 3.6 is so unloved by our generally value-focused CAPS community. A history of consistent restructuring charges, inconsistent profitability, and a questionable future business model have them down on the photo king.

However, more CAPS members think Sony is an underperform than any other consumer durables stock. Do you think it deserves this lack of love? Make your thoughts known in CAPS by clicking here. Or just go there to do further research on one of these popular stocks.

You can also see which consumer durables stocks are rated the top outperforms by clicking here.