We think the 'issue' currently has less to do with growth vs value and more to do with large-cap vs everything else where large-caps do look stretched but still are not at levels where we would call it unreasonable or frothy. On value vs growth, certainly buying 'cheap' stocks makes sense but we think investors need to define what cheap means to them and this is where we become a bit more wary of the broad 'value' factor or theme. Markets have become more efficient over the years and often times cheap value names are cheap for a reason. In turn, the average value stock today compared to 20 years ago might be quite different, so we don't always trust the idea that valuations for value stocks are going to naturally revert across the board. It certainly could happen but a lot of investors have been waiting a long time for this to occur. Within value names, there is almost definitiely great companies to own but we might be more reluctant to expect value more broadly to start outperforming for a sustained period.
Higher rates are and have been one factor to consider but we think a lot of this adjustment has already occurred at this stage and currently, higher rates might actually cause value names more problems going forward as often times these companies have higher debt loads and the costs of debt start to drag on earnings.