Although some investors are making the case that “stock market leadership should be passing from excellent-but-expensive growth stocks to cheaper value stocks more tied to a strong U.S. economy,” any lasting rebound of value is likely to require a “period of tougher overall market performance for a good while longer,” says a CNBC article.

The article asserts that growth stocks represent too large a share of the market to “retreat quietly while value moves to the fore.” It highlights the psychological barriers faced by investors whereby owning cheaper equities means “buying companies that appear not just boring but broken—terminally ‘disrupted’ by technological change.”

Value investing typically means betting on less-favored companies, the article says, and mean reversion is bound to occur over the long run, but it is not clear if the “market and economy are in a spot where a revival is necessarily imminent.”

The article concludes that if the stock market were to demonstrate a fourth quarter rally, “it would most likely involve the growth favorites of the Nasdaq finding their footing and perhaps those big, defensive—but not necessarily cheap—groups doing a good share of the lifting.”