Back in August I outlined why I thought the plain-vanilla value premium had been compressed to the point growth had and was likely to continue to outperform in my post Death of (Plain Vanilla) Value - Long Live GARP. This post is meant as a follow up and suggests a few frameworks as to how an investor might allocate based on the given "value of value".
Backdrop: Value of Value Matters
Value historically outperforms growth when stocks making up the value indices are beaten down relative to growth. Thus, it should be no surprise that value materially outperformed following the Internet bubble as value stocks were massively cheap relative to growth stocks (see below). The issue over the last decade plus is that many investors have piled into value ignoring the driver of value's historical outperformance, resulting in a "value discount" that is historically narrow.
The next chart outlines in more detail why the discount matters, with the starting "value discount" on the x-axis and the subsequent 7-year excess return on the y-axis. You can see the linear relationship between the "value of value" and future value excess return to growth. When the discount is high, outperformance of value vs growth is likely. When the discount is low (which happens to be where we currently sit), underperformance of value vs. growth is likely.
Putting the Insight into Action
While there are a multitude of ways this insight can be put to use, below are a few simplistic ways that only require making a reallocation at most quarterly and has been more likely to require a reallocation once every 3-5 years. Note this analysis does have a huge data mining issue as we know in advance that a 25% and 30% value discount are thresholds where growth and value have diverged in the past - though less of an issue today as we are near all-time tight levels. As an aside, as the charts below show it wasn't until the late 1990's that the performance of the Russell 3000 Value and Growth indices diverged. It was only when investors initially flocked to growth (and later value) that we have seen distinct differences in the "value discount" and in subsequent performance.
Model 1: Long-Only
Rules (reallocate the portfolio quarterly - ignores transaction costs):
- If the value discount is narrower than -25% (i.e. growth is cheap), allocate to the Russell 3000 Growth Index
- If the value discount is between -30% and -25%, allocate to the Russell 3000 Index (i.e. don't tilt growth or value)
- If the value discount is wider than -30% (i.e. growth is expensive), allocate to the Russell 3000 Value Index
Model 2: Long-Short
Rules (reallocate the portfolio quarterly - ignores transaction costs):
- If the value discount is narrower than -25% (i.e. growth is cheap), long position in the Russell 3000 Growth Index / short position in the Russell 3000 Value index overlayed on the Russell 3000 Index (i.e. generate alpha on top of the Russell 3000 Index through the long/short)
- If the value discount is between -30% and -25%, allocate to the Russell 3000 Index (i.e. don't tilt growth or value)
- If the value discount is wider than -30% (i.e. growth is expensive), long position in the Russell 3000 Value Index / short position in the Russell 3000 Growth index overlayed on the Russell 3000 Index
