NEW YORK- Some investors are playing this year’s tug of war between so-called growth and value stocks by owning companies that straddle the line between the two categories, as uncertainties mount over the US economy’s trajectory in the months ahead.
Value stocks, which trade at comparatively cheap multiples of their fundamentals, surged in early 2021 as hopes of an economic rebound boosted the shares of banks, energy firms and other economically sensitive names after years of underperformance.
Their performance against growth stocks has varied since then, with signs of a flagging US economic rebound tending to benefit growth names, which are less tied to the economy’s fluctuations and led the market for most of 2020. The Russell 1000 Value index is up 16.2 percent year-to-date, just behind the 18.6 percent notched by the Russell 1000 Growth Index as of midday on Friday. The benchmark S&P 500 index is up around 18 percent this year.
As a COVID-19 resurgence and a looming unwind of the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies cloud the economic outlook, “you’re not seeing a great backdrop for the deep value or the mega-growth names, so we think you can find some great businesses in the middle,” said David Marcus, portfolio manager of Evermore Global Value fund.
Marcus is moving into companies like French media conglomerate Vivendi SA, whose growth prospects he believes will improve after an expected spinoff of a stake in Universal Music Group later this month. On the value side, Vivendi owns a portfolio of economically sensitive media names and pays a dividend of 1.8 percent.
Investors will be keeping a close eye on next week’s Federal Reserve meeting, which concludes on Wednesday, for any details of the central bank’s plans to pull back its emergency-level support of the economy. The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan will conclude their meetings on the same day.
Some fund managers have also become worried over the comparatively high valuations commanded by growth stocks, which have helped boost the S&P’s price-earnings ratio near its highest level since the 2001 dotcom bubble. – Reuters
