The Real Story: Taking a Test Drive at Ford

In order to be a good contrarian, you have to revel at others' surprised reaction to your against-the-grain picks. Take, for example, Jeffrey Spotts, portfolio manager for Prophecy Asset Management, who laughed heartily when I told him I couldn't find any fundamental reason to like his idea of buying shares of Ford Motor (F Quote).

Being a technical analyst, Spotts is not especially interested in how many Ford Explorers are sold or if legacy health care costs are rising. What's important to him is how the stock trades -- and trade it has.

In the past two weeks, shares of Ford have traded higher on very heavy volume. "When I see big volume come in at low prices, I have to notice," he said. (The stock did fall 4% Thursday on 30.7 million shares vs. its three-month daily average of 19.7 million.) ...