Value vs Growth

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“Davidson” submits:

Q1 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

It is an oxymoron to say Value beats Growth if one listens to the media and the countless advisors claiming it is the other way around. Two charts, the monthly IVE vs IVW and the daily VOOV vs VOOG, help to clear the confusion.

First, the media thrives on maintaining/growing viewership it can sell advertising to. Broadcast the hottest stories, add hype to dire consequences or indicate that investors need to get-on-board the “New-New” thing does capture attention. The pace of delivery and delivering the same stories each time modified to sound a little different is part of the process. Having viewers believe that if they do not tune in frequently, they will miss information crucial to investment success is also a large part of the process. If one is investing using mainstream media as a primary information source, then you have my condolences. Investment information for higher returns originates elsewhere than the Growth issues touted daily.

The IVE and IVW chart represents the monthly price histories of SP500 issues separated into Value and Growth categories based on Revenue/Market Price Momentum screening. Long term IVE has grown ~12% vs IVW’s 8.7% with Value handily out-performing Growth. Over shorter periods, media attention on Growth issues have temporarily driven price expansion well ahead of fundamentals as we are experiencing with the concerns of COVOD on economic activity as seen in the daily VOOV vs VOOG data. Both, charts represent identical ETFs with IVE and IVW having a history from 2000 not available for VOOV and VOOG.

Value vs Growth

Value vs Growth

The heavy emphasis on growth began prior to COVID with multiple recession scares. The COVID impact boosted this focus. As economic activity normalizes, i.e. people return to work rather than stay-at-home, investors become aware that core US industrials which are vital to economic activity never disappeared and remain as vital as ever. Fundamentally important companies, the backbone of economic activity, comprise the Value indices and cycle back into investor’s focus. One of the reasons driving this ebb and flow is that there are enough failures in untested growth companies as screened by SP500 that as a group they underperform those deemed stodgy value companies. One reason value companies do better is that they have already been through their higher growth periods, been tested multiple times by stressful economic conditions and survived.

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Todd Sullivan is a Massachusetts-based value investor and a General Partner in Rand Strategic Partners. He looks for investments he believes are selling for a discount to their intrinsic value given their current situation and future prospects. He holds them until that value is realized or the fundamentals change in a way that no longer support his thesis. His blog features his various ideas and commentary and he updates readers on their progress in a timely fashion. His commentary has been seen in the online versions of the Wall St. Journal, New York Times, CNN Money, Business Week, Crain’s NY, Kiplingers and other publications. He has also appeared on Fox Business News & Fox News and is a RealMoney.com contributor. His commentary on Starbucks during 2008 was recently quoted by its Founder Howard Schultz in his recent book “Onward”. In 2011 he was asked to present an investment idea at Bill Ackman’s “Harbor Investment Conference”.