While in the late 1990s it was most hip to be a "day trader," the vogue for investors these days is to style themselves as "contrarians." You know, the market's rocketing higher, and the contrarians are tut-tutting that everything is just so overvalued.

"I'm a contrarian," they say in that disdainful tone that old-school Dave Matthews fans reserve for the band's newer music. "I saw them play at the Pika House at UVa before anyone had ever heard of them," they sniff. "I'm a contrarian."

It's easy to feel contrarian when you're watching companies with marginal businesses and razor-thin floats rocket higher each day. You believe fully that this craziness is going to stop. You have your money in the new Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD), you're short the iSharesSemiconductor ETF (AMEX:IGW) or the Financial Select SPDR (AMEX:XLF), and you're fully expecting the market to tank along with the rise in interest rates, the fall in the dollar, and a myriad other problems.

You are certainly negative. You may well be correct and prudent. But a contrarian, at this moment in time, you are not. There are too many people standing right there beside you. There's a reason that one of the most hated trades in the world at the moment is going long the U.S. dollar, and it's not because everyone but you is all hap-hap-happy.

You want to be contrarian? Great -- that particular designation awaits you, but it isn't in the form of just being negative. Contrarian players at this moment are trying to figure out if Ford (NYSE:F) is actually undervalued under the weight of its financing and pension liabilities. Contrarians might be a little bit more excited than the market about what's next for Kodak (NYSE:EK) as it tries to make the transition from a film-based business to a digital photography world.

Lots of people are negative on the prospects of the economy and the markets. There is a reason why Morgan Stanley's (NYSE:MWD) chief economist, Stephen Roach, a snarling bear at the moment, gets rock-star treatment wherever he goes these days. Lots of people believe that we're in a secular bear market, and that almost every asset class is overpriced. This author included. But you're not alone -- not even close. Financial Reckoning Day was a New York Times best seller, for heaven's sake. That's either a few people with some industrial-strength crazy buying hundreds of copies apiece, or it's a whole host of people who are quite worried. You want to be a real contrarian? Look among the wreckage of KrispyKreme (NYSE:KKD) and see if you find value.

So don't worry, you're not alone. But if you want to be alone, being negative about the state of things isn't doing the trick.

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Bill Mann owns none of the companies mentioned in this story.