When Value Delivers

The first half of 2023 marks the 10th time since 1926 that value stocks have underperformed growth stocks by more than 20 percentage points over a two-quarter period. More often than not, value has responded like the hero in an action movie, beating growth over the following four quarters in seven of the nine previous instances and averaging a cumulative outperformance of nearly 29 percentage points.

The sample size may be small, but a positive average value premium following a large negative period is not too surprising. In fact, looking at the other side of the value performance distribution, there have been 19 two-quarter periods with the value premium exceeding positive-20%. In 11 of these, value outperformance continued over the next four quarters. The average premium across all 19 was 3.6%.

It’s notoriously challenging to find an indicator that consistently predicts negative value premiums. Regardless of value’s recent performance, investors should expect positive value premiums going forward. That’s a strong incentive for investors to maintain a disciplined stance to asset allocation, so they can capture the outperformance when value stocks deliver.