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Blame the same macro tension playing out across all financial markets for those inflated valuations. Fears of an economic slowdown remain elevated and idiosyncratic risks like trade tensions and Brexit linger, even as dovish shift by central banks offers support to asset prices.

“The cyclical downturn has favored defensive styles that work through periods of secular stagnation, regardless of central-bank interventions,” Bank of America Corp. strategists led by Manish Kabra wrote in a note.

Yet the macro picture should look better in the coming months thanks in part to base effects, they said, and Societe Generale SA has warned against chasing already expensive bond proxies. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. points out high-growth equities are trading at their widest premium to their low-growth peers since 2000.

On the flip side, riskier styles look cheap. Value shares are trading near the lowest versus growth since 2000, and the quantitative whizzes at Sanford C. Bernstein reckon they are ripe for a tactical rebound thanks to the historic valuation gap.

But that’s an outlier view, and even those who are bullish on the outlook have their doubts about value because looser monetary policies don’t favor the style. The low-for-longer era is better for growth shares, or high-duration assets that can post expanding profits relatively insulated from shifts in the economic cycle.

“The Fed and ECB killed value,” said Cyrille Collet, head of quantitative investing at CPR Asset Management. Instead the firm is snapping up companies with high profitability, high sales growth and strong earnings and price momentum, as well as boosting exposure to those with low valuations.

“Economic growth will of course be positive for the next few years, but slow,” said Collet.

At its heart, the allocation quandary stems not only from broad macro angst, but also from the long-established debate about whether investors with reams of data on styles that outperform in different economic and valuation scenarios should try to time the market at all.

Factor proponents frequently point to the long time horizons of many strategies, which are expected to face potentially lengthy periods of underperformance. That may naturally be expected to happen in the kind of choppy market landscape of the past six months or so.

Underscoring the turbulence, riskier styles had been making a comeback at the start of the year, but they’re now ceding ground as investors return to more defensive strategies.