By Todd Shriber via Iris.xyz
It is often said that over the long-term, value stocks outperform their growth rivals. With that in mind, the performances of value and growth stocks during the current bull market in U.S. equities is vexing.
Since the start of the current bull market on March 10, 2009 through April 30, 2018, the S&P 500 Growth Index returned over 368 percent while the S&P 500 Value Index was higher by just over 309 percent. The value benchmark also lagged the S&P 500 over that period. Over the trailing 12-, 24- and 36-month periods, the S&P 500 Growth Index maintains healthy advantages over its value counterpart.
A byproduct of value’s laggard status is that a growing number of market observers and investors are willing to say it is just a matter of time before value starts topping growth. Value supporters point to lofty valuations on the FANG stocks – Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AZMN), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) – as a sign that growth names could be vulnerable to retrenchment.
“Value stocks are trading at 13.5 times forward earnings; the FANG stocks— Facebook (FB), Amazon.com (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL)—are trading at nearly double that, though a still surprisingly low 24 times,” reports Barron’s, citing Thomas Lee at FundStrat Global Advisors.
Why Now For Value
Betting on trend reversal simply because the trend in question has been in place for a while is not a winning strategy, but there are reasons to believe the value factor could have its day. One of the potential catalysts is the stronger dollar.
S&P 500 members generate 70.9% of their revenue on a domestic basis, but for S&P 500 Value components, that number jumps to 73%, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. A similar theme is seen with mid-cap stocks where members of the S&P MidCap 400 Value Index derive more sales on a domestic basis than members of the S&P MidCap 400 Index.
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