Demystifying the False Choice of Value and Growth Investing
Many investors have chosen sides in the partisan “value vs. growth” debate to define their investment ideology and market their products. Instead of choosing sides in this arbitrary debate, since 1995, Applied Finance has advocated for a robust valuation-centric philosophy emphasizing economic principles centered around profitability, growth, competition, and risk. Equipped with this point of view, it is clear that value and growth managers are both aware of important considerations when estimating intrinsic value, but staunch advocates of either perspective suffer from incomplete frameworks. Value advocates are correct that valuation should matter, but commonly used methodologies suffer from poor ex-post performance and lack a robust economic justification, especially when a dividend discount model tautology assumes that negative growth unconditionally generates positive stock market returns. Growth managers are correct that positive growth potentially creates shareholder value, but absent a reliable corporate performance and valuation framework, they too often lack the ability to understand the required future growth and profitability expectations embedded in stock prices. […more]
