Nobody saw it coming.

To pick a winning stock at the start of March, you had to find a company that was hated by analysts, adored by short sellers, avoided by institutional buyers and averse to doing just about anything but pay dividends. Shares with those characteristics have generated returns of as much as 5.8 percent even as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index stood still, data compiled by Bespoke Investment Group LLC and Bloomberg show.

The unlikelihood of arriving at such a blueprint after a five-year bull market is taking a toll on asset managers, with more than 80 percent of growth and value funds trailing benchmarks in 2014. For investors coming back to the market just as losses in Internet shares approach 20 percent, it’s a lesson on how little past performance says about the future.

via Hated Stocks Unlock Market as Analysts Prove No Guide to Gains – Bloomberg.