By Teresa Rivas

"My name is George. I'm unemployed and live with my parents."

That iconic line lands George Costanza a date in the Seinfeld episode "The Opposite." Realizing all his instincts are wrong, he decides to do the inverse, leading to personal and professional success, at least temporarily.

I always knew George and I were kindred spirits, from his inclination to dress by mood--this one is morning mist, he tells his friends--to his love of eating cheese by the block. And I agree it should be socially acceptable to drape oneself in velvet.

This year, I've been thinking about "The Opposite" more than ever. Far too often, I realized belatedly that going against my instincts would have been the right choice.

I have made plenty of calls on stocks that worked out. Both Viking Holdings and Expedia have taken investors on a good ride, and shareholders have been able to sleep well with Hyatt. Gilead Sciences has delivered healthy gains. TJX turned out to be a great bargain, and while it is too early to say if it will go the distance, Burlington Stores has notched a couple of strong weeks to end the year.

Yet like George, I am more likely to dwell on my mistakes. ("God would never let me be successful," he says in the 1993 episode "The Pilot.") The last day of the year seems a fitting time to review the times I wish I hadn't listened to my instincts.

First and foremost, I wish I had just done the opposite of recommending Academy Sports and Outdoors at the start of the year. The sporting goods retailer had a fantastic run throughout the pandemic and beyond, and its stock didn't do worse than industry leader Dick's Sporting Goods.

Still, athletic gear was a tough space to be in this year, and I should have simply left my original July 2021 article alone. The shares are still up about 40% since I wrote favorably about the stock back then.

I also have plenty of regret about highlighting Sherwin-Williams in July. The positive factors I anticipated didn't materialize, and much like my most recent home painting project, the results weren't what I was hoping for.

I often struggle with whether to write a stock call just before earnings reports because that means the stakes can be much higher. Getting it right means investors can get in before a pop, but a mistaken call means that their holdings lose value right away.

I have been burned by the latter before, so I shied away from doing a pre-earnings pick on SharkNinja in early November. The stock jumped by double digits on the report, and remains more than 20% higher. I hope to have a chance to write about it if the shares pull back.

Timing was similarly an issue with my Kinder Morgan article in June: Natural gas and the stock had been trending higher in the months before the pick, leading me to foolishly hope both could avoid a summer slump. That didn't pan out, though a more recent recommendation to buy fellow natural-gas play Expand Energy in October has fared much better.

The Costanza technique isn't for the faint of heart. Immediately searching for the opposite of what you really think can leave you confused. Nor did it really work out for George: The job he lands at the Yankees by ignoring his instincts ultimately turns out to be a disaster, leaving him much where he started as the series ends.

So I can't promise that I will faithfully follow the Costanza Method next year. The best I can hope for is to have another year like 2025, with more success stories than not. If it doesn't work out, when people ask me what I do at cocktail parties, I'll just say I'm an architect.

I've always wanted to pretend to be an architect.

Write to Teresa Rivas at teresa.rivas@barrons.com

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December 31, 2025 14:19 ET (19:19 GMT)

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