The great rotation: Will short duration and cyclicality prosper in European markets?

Synchronised economic recovery

On 9 November 2020, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they had created an effective vaccine for Covid-19. This news drove a sharp rotation away from the so-called 'growth' and 'quality' sectors and into 'value' ones. In fact, it was one of the biggest rotations we had ever witnessed.

Ever since then investors appear to be grappling with the idea of whether or not this will be sustained or short-lived rotation. Four months have passed since the announcement and at the time of writing, 'value' as a factor has indeed outperformed 'growth' and 'quality' - though not in a straight line. It can be best described as a tug of war.  IW Long Reads: The commodities 'supercycle' - Is a climate change revolution fuelling optimism for markets? For us, as valuation focused investors, factors, in reality, do not matter that much. Yes, our European equity fund range continues t...