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However, some of the greatest fortunes have been made by investors willing to make contrarian bets in the market.
With that in mind, here's Credit Suisse with their list of 18 contrarian stock picks, including 12 that they think Wall Street is too bearish on and 6 on which the consensus is too bullish.
"We screened our current US coverage universe to identify companies where our analysts' views diverged from that of the Street, focusing on both rating as well as earnings projections," said Credit Suisse in the note, which was circulated to clients on Friday. "To further strengthen the list of stocks, we worked closely with the research analysts to select stories in which our conviction level is high. The result is a list of 12 Outperform-rated names and 6 Underperform-rated stocks."
Below are the 18 companies, Credit Suisse's target for the stock price, a snippet of their contrarian rationale, and a little information on the company.