One who takes an opposing view or who rejects the majority opinion.

Contrarian investors buy securities that are unpopular to the majority money. Not necessarily unpopular to the majority of investors but to the controlling group who have the most money riding on a particular financial asset. That group could be very small but very powerful.

Being a contrarian is counterintuitive to being a conformist. 

"The trend is your friend" is a phrase that was coined by  George Lane and it is revered by conformist investors, marketing people, purchasing agents, and all types of people who speculate on the future directional path of whatever it is that they are concentrated on.  

But "the trend is your friend" can get lost when timeframes are applied to the rule. While a stock or a currency is trending in one direction on a long time frame it is also following trends that are going with the longer flow or against the longer flow on selected shorter time frames.

That is true in all disciplines.

What makes a contrarian successful ?

This question suggests that a contrarian is the exact opposite of a conformist and that is not necessarily a fact. 

To be both a conformist and a contrarian at the same time is possible in a sense. The investor might be bullish or with the trend on a long time frame but at the same time may be favoring the bears or the contrarian opinion for a brief period with the longer cycle.

I looked at the power of cycles and trends in forex waves. 

What makes a contrarian successful then in my opinion is the ability to ride the shorter waves in and out of trades while keeping in mind the longer trend.

It could be written as an equation such as 

contrarian + conformist = neutrality

Then we could change the question to " Why is being neutral so much more powerful that being a contrarian or a conformist?"

This argument might also set a rule as to who is an investor and who is a trader. Warren Buffett is an investor. He buys up a position and he holds on to it while always keeping in mind the fundamentals or underlying properties that make the position a wise investment. Buffett does not sweat the shorter cycles. 

Technical traders, like George Lane,  on the other hand move in and out of positions while keeping the longer trend or economical underlying conditions in mind. Traders use the short term swings in the price of commodities, currencies, stocks, bonds.....to enter and exit positions.

So what makes a contrarian successful ?

My answer might be that contrarians need to understand and act on the fact that they are actually neutral overall. They are conformists playing out a counterintuitive trade that their contrarian self is telling them is the right thing to do.

The successful contrarian uses charts and technical indicators and money management strategies to take profits out of short term pull backs in a longer trend. 

Of course there is more to it than that. There are also many ways to achieve this. 

The conformist side might have put the trader into a position that is long with the bulls. Meanwhile the contrarian might have picked up on a bearish short cycle and while keeping the long trade open would have used  derivatives like options as a means of protecting the profits made on the longer investment. Or even as a means of increasing the overall profitability of the longer investment.

Trading derivatives is a journey into the land of the beast. Bears and bulls are just tamed animals when the seemingly supernatural forces of these financial instruments are put into action. Few people have the risk aversion mindset that allows them to be underwriters. But by learning to trade options on quickly finds out that there is no need to take on the huge risks that underwriters take.

Options and futures are not well understood by most novice and intermediate traders therefore most people scare away from these financial instruments.

Another method of playing both the role of conformist and contrarian is by finding two financial instruments that are highly correlated. When one moves then the other follows suit. There is danger in this since "follows suit" is not a perfect law. 

Being a contrarian or a conformist, an investor or a trader, applies not only to financial markets. We trade something for something else in every aspect of life. And there are short cycles and long cycles being played out in every one of those aspects. 

So maybe the answer to "What makes a contrarian successful ?" is that the contrarian must know when to conform. 

Bucking the trend kills but it can also save.

Leaders can lead through deceit and going with the trend or following the herd as often proven to be very detrimental to the fabric of society.

The best judges are those who can remain completely neutral. They are objectively driven. Yet objectives written by the laws of man can be equally deceptive. So a neutral judge who swings the objective ax of the governing rule written by man could be swinging a very dangerous ax.

If being neutral or a conformist contrarian is the answer then there should be many more schools of thought to consider.

Such as 

What does it mean to be a right wing extremist?

What does it mean to be a left wing extremist?

The neutrality mentality would certainly keep one open minded at all times and in financial markets it would give creedence to free and open markets where the public sets the price of financial instruments.

This free and open markets then keeps the paradigm out of the hands of extremist conformists and keeps the fight for democracy alive. Anything else leads to suppression of freedom and to oppression. 

Neutrality keeps the house in balance. It should also keep political agendas from falling into the hands of socialists and worst yet tyrant fascists.

So go ahead be a conformist-contrarian and take a stand on neutrality.