Seth Klarman Defends Value Investing

In a letter to clients, billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman suggested that value investing will have its day in the sun once again. This according to a recent CNBC article.

The Baupost CEO said several factors, including the proliferation of passive investing, have “created market mispricings that will soon lead to a pay off for the long underperforming strategy.”

“As funds continue to flow into the hands of indexers, stocks not included in prominent indices relentlessly lag, while the beneficiaries of such inflows move more or less in tandem, sometimes seemingly regardless of diverging fundamentals,” Klarman wrote.

While Klarman acknowledged that the current “trend-following environment has left Baupost looking flat-footed,” he argued that value investing should prove its worth over time, adding that the current low-interest rate environment represents “rocket fuel” for inflated valuations, a situation which is not sustainable. Once the market corrects those mispricings, he argued, value investing could see a comeback.

“Price may be what you pay, in other words,” he wrote, “but value is what you get.”