With the resumption of trade war, and its impact on Technology and Consumer Discretionary, one might have expected an outperformance of the more defensive Value style in the US market in the last few weeks. As a matter of fact, though, the S&P 500 Pure Growth index is well ahead of its Pure Value peer (-3.61% vs -8.56% MTD and 16.35% vs 5.03% YTD as of the close of Aug. 23). This looked weird to us and we checked.
The main factor behind this counter-intuitive showing is the weak performance of the banking sector. So, yes, some traditional Growth sectors have been weak lately, but there are a lot of big banks among heavy weights in the Value index, and they were a major drag on its performance. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, PNC Financial all lost 8 to 14% since the end of July.
Let’s also keep in mind that, even in Technology and Consumer Discretionary, not all stocks offer the same high growth that they used to have a few years ago. Micron Technology and HP, for example, now are in the Pure Value index, together with Gap and many department stores.
Finally, a few strange details in the way these indices are built also play a role. Verizon Communication, for example, is in the top-five components of the … Pure Growth index, which looks surprising. According to Refinitiv’s IBES database, its earnings growth, as anticipated by the consensus of sell-side analysts, is 1.7% this year, 1.8% next year, and 3% in the long-term. Let’s hope that, even in the worst case scenarios, these growth rates are not enough to qualify them among the fastest-growing companies in the US market!
We hope this helps.