After dragging behind growth since the 2008 financial crisis, value investing is once again winning, thanks to increasing bond yields chokehold on tech stocks, according to the latest installment of the weekly MLIV Pulse survey, reports Bloomberg.
The survey recorded 1,087 responses from retail investors, portfolio strategists and strategists around the world. 74% of the responders said stocks that appear undervalued will outperform their growth counterparts for the remainder of this year—an overwhelming rebuke to those who have posited that value investing has become irrelevant in today’s tech-driven economy.
With 40% of votes, the most popular value index is the S&P 500 Value index, with energy and bank stocks ranking next. Even with the overwhelming majority of responders favoring value, many experts still think it’s too early to crown value as the reigning champion, especially as the S&P 500 Growth index, including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, starts to report earnings. Some strategists are advising a “barbell portfolio” that balances growth and value stocks such as metals and mining, while others are suggesting financial services and commodities.
Growth has reigned over value in the S&P 500 for most of the last 15 years, but as yields have gone up current earnings look much more appealing than future growth, the article explains. But though the respondents are bullish on value, they’re still bearish on stocks in emerging markets, citing geopolitical risk, aggressive policies from central banks, and weak growth prospects. Two-thirds of respondents predict emerging markets to be outperformed by developed-market stocks this year, despite the asset class’s relative inexpensiveness.
And with China accounting for 31%, wagering on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index is betting on China, and Bloomberg reports that the economists they track have slashed their predictions for China’s growth to 5% in 2022. The country that garnered the most positive response in the survey? Brazil. That country has enjoyed a 23% return in dollar terms in 2022 so far and is relatively insulated from the war in Ukraine while gaining upside from higher commodity prices.