It’s a very different picture at the $38 million iShares Focused Value Factor ETF (FOVL). The deep value fund tracks an index of just 40 or so stocks and has chemical and ammunitions maker Olin Corp.—not exactly a household name—as its top stock, at 4.7%. The median market-cap in the ETF? A comparatively small $9.1 billion.
What’s needed to spark ARK Innovation-like momentum-chasing into deep value ETFs is, of course, high returns that tower over the funds’ growth counterparts and their more mainstream value peers. And that’s exactly what’s been happening this year for some of the most highly concentrated deep value ETFs.
The iShares Focused Value Factor, for example, has a 26.8% gain for the year as of the Wednesday close, and the $40.1 million Roundhill Acquirers Deep Value ETF (DEEP) is up more than 25%. The Vanguard Value ETF is up 10.4%, and the iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF (IWD) has gained 11.1%.
The Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG), meanwhile, is up 1.9% for the year, and the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW) has gained 1.7%.
As that comparison shows, value funds can have very different styles, which can lead to big performance gaps over 12-month periods. The gap between the best- and worst-performing value ETFs has averaged 16 percentage points since 2006, peaking at 94 points during the financial crisis.
“Some of the deep value ETFs are kind of like lottery tickets,” Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said. “If it works, the funds could hit the jackpot.”
The big question, though, is whether this is truly a shift from growth investing into value, or just a blip of outperformance.
“Value has had so many head fakes over the years that no one really believes the outperformance will last,” Balchunas said. There may need to be six months of trouncing growth ETFs before there’s a mass psychological shift toward some of the niche value ETFs, he figures.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.