In recent months, we're seeing some of the most respected titans of finance making investments in industries that most individual investors wouldn't touch. While these investments might seem boring, the track records of these investors indicate that the returns could be anything but. Take a look:

On April 5th, I wrote about Carl Icahn's bid for WCI Communities, a real estate developer with interests in Florida, a state that has seen a lot of carnage in the real estate market of late. Mr. Icahn explained the investment like this: "My investment philosophy, generally, with exceptions, is to buy something when no one wants it. We made a fairly large investment and took control of several energy companies seven or eight years ago when they were way down. Housing is somewhat analogous."

Just as Icahn buys stuff when no one wants, Warren Buffett says that the secret to good investing is to be "greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy." A willingness to go against the commonly-held investment wisdom is at the core of the philosophies of both of these investors. On April 8th, BloggingStocks writer Jonathan Berr wrote that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) had become the largest shareholder of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (NYSE: BNI). Very few investors that I know would even look at railroad stocks and, while no official reason has been given for Buffett's investment yet, this may be one of the factors that attracted him.

Media mogul Sam Zell recently purchased Tribune Media, which is one of the major players in the newspaper industry, a product that has been in decline for some years. Warren Buffett himself, also a holder of several newspapers has lamented that every time an elderly person dies, newspapers lose a reader they will never get back. Jack Welch has also expressed interest in acquiring the Boston Globe.

When we examine the philosophies of these great investors, we see a common theme: They are all willing to go against the consensus, and make investments that appear puzzling to most people. To learn about integrating elements of contrarian investing into your regimen, check out David Dreman's Contrarian Investment Strategies, one of my favorite books of all time. Also read his monthly column in Forbes.