Market Insights

Growth stocks have continued a decade-long trend and massively outperformed value stocks for much of 2020, but in recent weeks performance has been more even. The change suggests many of the factors that propelled growth forward since the pandemic have been fully absorbed by the market. But is that enough to stage a changing of the guard for value investing?

This blog post reflects on what fueled the divergence between growth and value in recent months, what it will take to reverse value stocks’ fortunes, and why the recent economic downturn may turn out to be a positive change agent for some companies in value indices.

Renewable energy companies enjoyed considerable growth over the last decade, as the cost of solar and wind power technologies declined significantly. ”Renewables’ competitiveness with fossil fuels is strong, driven by considerable innovation, learning and economies of scale,” Lydia Miller, Portfolio Specialist at Dana Investment Advisors states in a recent Green Money Journal column. “We believe that the transition to a low-carbon economy is happening and will continue to happen. This happens over decades, with investors increasingly discounting this long-term trend.”

To say ESG has hit an inflection point would be putting it mildly. Flows into sustainable funds quadrupled to $21.4 billion in 2019. The first half of 2020 has nearly eclipsed that mark, with flows totaling $20.9 billion, according to Morningstar figures. But amid this surging demand, where do advisors fit?

The S&P 500 has hit new records in recent days, completing a round trip that has been remarkable, rapid, resilient … and risky.

In a span of just 126 trading days, the S&P 500 went from peak to new peak, with a 34% drop in between. Below we offer some short, but important, takeaways on how we got here, what investors should have learned, what we are concerned about, and how we are investing going forward.

As client demand for ESG strategies grows, advisors have a tough job ahead of them: finding a strategy that is suitable as a core equity holding. Without proper due diligence on fund construction, a strategy used as a core holding may expose a client to unintended risks.

The details are all in the portfolio construction process.

The financial crisis was painful for anyone working on Wall Street, but the period gets credit for improving at least one industry dynamic: The bar for effective communication from an asset manager has been significantly raised.

As markets plummeted, advisors, consultants, investment committees and other key fund decision makers demanded dialogue from their portfolio managers about the market collapse and what they planned to do going forward. The demand for increased communication continues today, and is an industry trend we applaud.

Advisors and consultants deserve shared insight from their investment managers, and an open forum for communication. In short, they deserve true partnership. We believe boutique asset managers are best positioned to deliver the partnership clients deserve.

As investor interest in ESG grows, so too are the number of ESG strategies to choose from. Already, 23 ESG funds have launched in 2020, and more than 20 others are in registration at the SEC, according to Morningstar.¹ This marks the sixth straight year of more than 20 launches.

With more fund launches, due diligence isn’t getting any easier. We believe one way advisors and other allocators can help their clients find the right strategy is to ask whether they want a fund that is directly engaging businesses to improve corporate policy around ESG issues.

Many ESG funds do not engage management teams on policies, but instead rely on ESG ratings to screen out non-ESG friendly companies and include companies with better ratings. That may well be enough for some clients.

With growth stocks on a historical run of outperforming value, many allocators are wondering if mean reversion is due and are questioning their allocations to both style boxes. But growth or value may be the wrong question to ask.

As Dana portfolio managers explained in a recent Q&A on the ways active managers can differentiate their strategies, core strategies may provide optimal exposure. The Q&A also runs through a classic example of the perils of overpaying for growth, and touches on a less discussed benefit of core strategies: tax efficiency. As our portfolio managers explain:

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing is all the rage. When Dana Investments started our first ESG fund at the turn of the century, the total market size for ESG strategies was only $2 trillion. At the start of 2018, ESG strategies accounted for an astounding $12 trillion in investable assets! However, despite this robust demand, an air of ambiguity still hovers over the ESG marketplace. Investors are hearing about these funds and clearly want to know more. 

ESG, SRI (socially responsible investing), RI (responsible investing) and faith-based funds all fall under the umbrella of impact investments. The mandate for these funds is to consider the impact that corporate behavior has on shareholders, stakeholders and society. Impact investors not only want their returns, they want their returns to matter.

The index returns above are a snapshot of the robust returns for financial assets in 2019.  These returns were buoyed in the second half of the year with the reversal of two investment headwinds: interest rates and trade. The Federal Reserve lowered the Fed Funds rate by 0.75% while the U.S. and China made progress in their tenuous trade dispute. The gains in the equity market averages were accompanied by lackluster 3.5%* earnings growth. As a result, market valuations appear stretched.  Entering 2020 the Case Shiller P/E ratio is 31.19, a level of valuation exceeded only in 1929 and 1999.