Equity Dislocation Strategy

Today we see the biggest deviation in GMO’s Comfort Model since the internet bubble.

Although it appears that the long cheap Value/short expensive Growth train has indeed left the station, we believe that there is still plenty of track remaining before it reaches its destination.

In this webcast, Jeremy Grantham, Ben Inker, and Simon Harris discuss recent market volatility and provide an update on the opportunity the wide spread in valuations between Value and Growth stocks still presents.

Growth trap stocks have underperformed the broad growth universe since last summer by their largest margin for any comparable period in history, and Ben Inker expects more pain to come.

Amazingly, after one (admittedly strong) quarter, we have started to get the odd question as to whether the Value vs. Growth reversal has played out. Despite a late-quarter surge in Growth, the answer is an emphatic “No!”

Growth stocks around the world are priced with exceedingly high expectations, and names that have recently disappointed have been mercilessly repriced. No matter, there are ways to navigate these dangerous waters.

Bubbles inflict deep and cruel wounds that can last for decades, which is why we believe it is prudent to avoid them, exploit them, or dance around them as best we can.

Ben Inker addresses some of the objections we hear from investors who are hesitant to join us in betting strongly on value today.

We share our thoughts about the Equity Dislocation Strategy’s results thus far and current opportunity at the 9-month anniversary.

Profitable trades never happen in a straight line. Growth may have beaten Value in June, but our Equity Dislocation thesis remains intact. Value still deserves to win, by a lot.

The S&P 500 is full of great companies with great prospects. We don’t dispute that. But that is missing the point. Our worry is the prices you are paying for that growth.

The signs of speculative excess in the stock market today are obvious. Speculative booms provide entertainment and outsized profits while they are happening, but they do generally burst painfully.

We believe Value is priced to repeat the same dominance over Growth that we witnessed in the period after 1999.

Growth still looks extremely expensive relative to Value. An actively managed long Value/short Growth portfolio can exploit this phenomenon.

It is commonly assumed that growth stocks are longer duration than value stocks, but an analysis of the drivers of return for value and growth shows that their durations are much closer than most realize.

After more than a decade of disappointing performance, Value stocks just experienced their worst 12-month performance in history. This has left these stocks trading at some of the cheapest levels relative to the market we have eve...