Value Investing Might Be Dead and Here's Why

“Value investing might have lost its value,” according to a recent CNBC article, citing comments from asset management company AB Bernstein that describe the classic strategy as “increasingly irrelevant thanks to central banks and technology.”

Bernstein reportedly attributes the long period of low interest rates and the Fed post-financial crisis quantitative easing program for the “demise” of value investing, adding, “an easier monetary policy lifted valuations across the board, leaving a smaller premium on cheap stocks, hence the long stretch of underperformance of value names.”

The article offers comments from Inigo Fraser-Jenkins, Bernstein’s head of European quantitative strategy, who wrote in a recent note, “The outperformance of value might require higher interest rates, which could be structurally difficult to achieve in the foreseeable future.” The article notes that the decade-long bull market has been led by gains in major tech company shares which have “ruined the economic moats of many industries.” Value investors, it adds, have been negatively impacted by the massive rotation to growth stocks amidst increased appetite for fast-growing companies (dominated by tech).

“To be sure,” the article concludes, this could just be an extra-long period of growth investing outperformance coming as a result of the fallout from a once-in-a-generation financial crisis. Once we return to more normal economic cycles, the two types of investing could begin to take turns again.”