Wall Street just loves its buzz words. Next to the military, the financial industry has more jargon than it knows what to do with.

Declining markets are euphemistically known as ‘corrections’ (as though the fact that the market had gone up in the first place was simply a mistake.) Financial pundits are not satisfied with feeling good or positive about stock prospects; they need to be ‘constructive’. Buying a stock that is dropping is likened to ‘catching a falling knife’, and if the stock barely rebounds after declining it has experienced a ‘dead cat bounce’.

My favorite term being bandied about nowadays relates to the popularity of a given investment. As one financial reporter asked an analyst on a recent investing program: “everyone is talking about dividend stocks these days – isn’t that trade crowded?” I can just picture everyone who wants to own high quality dividend paying stocks trying to fit into a room, the big bouncer type guy standing behind the velvet rope at the door proclaiming,“Sorry, we can’t let you in. The dance floor is too crowded.”

Here is the reality of investing (if not of life in general): the fact that others think something is good or bad does not make it so. As a species, we seem to need the validation of others. How many times have you been in a restaurant when someone at the next table asks the 23-year-old server what she recommends? “Oh, I really like the veal tonight.” “Sounds great, I’ll have that,” responds the patron. As though some twenty-something stranger’s tastes are important determining factors in what you should have for dinner.

Yet, in so many aspects of life we are strongly influenced by the views of others. Advertising preys on a human’s basic need to be confirmed by others by proclaiming that such and such a product is the most popular on the market. “Then it must be good” the hapless consumer thinks to himself. “I mean, how could the crowd be wrong?” How could the majority of Americans who make, for example, bad dietary choices daily leading to obesity be wrong about anything?

Mutual fund outflows – namely sales – are consistently at their peaks during large market declines. Recent market panic lows like those experienced in October of 2008 and March 0f 2009 bore this out. Retail investors exited the markets in droves just as the market was bottoming in the spring of 2009 only to nearly double in the months to follow.

The most successful investors in the world are contrarian, independent thinkers by nature. Sometimes the crowd is right, but often the crowd is wrong.

Whether others share your opinion should not be a determining factor in making an investment. Others’ circumstances may be very different. Maybe they are selling a stock not because the company is broken, but because they are getting divorced and need to raise money for alimony payments. If you like the salmon, order the salmon. Don’t worry about what your server thinks. Step away from the crowd and you just might like the view.