A value-oriented portfolio that Morningstar began tracking a year ago, dubbed "The Tortoise," returned 20%, whereas a growth-oriented "Hare" portfolio lost nearly 19% of its value, Morningstar announced last week. Morningstar launched the two portfolios, which have averaged 15 holdings apiece, last June and is basing these performance figures on the 12-month period ending June 17.
The Tortoise portfolio, which has a heavy weighting in retail stocks, outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 34%, whereas the Hare underperformed the S&P 500 by 5%.
As to whether value could continue delivering such strong returns, Mark Sellers, manager of the two portfolios said, "It's hard to make a prediction like that, but fund flows are still moving strongly toward value, so the momentum continues towards that area. However, on a relative basis, I must caution that many of the value funds out there don't really look like value funds because their holdings are not that cheap."