Style Box Divergence Widens as Growth Outpaces Value Yet Again in 2025

The above spreadsheet is an easy way for me to stay updated on the various style box returns based on the iShares style-box ETFs which are listed on the spreadsheet.

As readers can see, large-cap growth led in 2023 and 2024, thanks to the two years of +25% returns for the , but the value style held in much better and showed much better relative performance in 2023, before dramatically underperforming in 2024.

The first three months of 2025 (through March 31), value outperformed nicely, but has now fallen back as growth has come roaring back, after tempered comments about tariffs following the sharp market drop around Liberation Day.

The vertical black-bordered boxes show style-box returns for full years 2023 and 2024.

The horizontal black-bordered box shows how badly SMID (small and mid-cap value) has performed over the last 10,15, years.

The 10-year returns for mid-cap value and small-cap growth and small-cap value, are just terrible.

And yet those are the styles that saw a lot of buying after the 1982 to 2000 bull market ended.

Conclusion

These returns are updated so that I have a record of how the various styles are performing. None of this is advice or a recommendation. Large-cap growth is “lit” once again since April 7th, but the large-cap space is now largely very overbought.

I admire the discipline of small-cap value and mid-cap value investors, but I often wonder how their conversations with clients go, when the mainstream financial media is so focused on growth and tech, and those styles underperform.

If you gauge secular bull markets by length of time (as I do), this secular bull that started in March 2009 is getting a little elderly.

Keep an eye on what’s not doing well, even for long periods of time: when the bull market (s) end, as they inevitably do, the uncorrelated, or non-correlated in the last bull market tend to shine.

Disclaimer: None of this is advice or a recommendation, but only an opinion. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All annual return data sourced above is from Morningstar. The above information may not be updated, and if it is updated, may not be done in a timely fashion.

Thanks for reading.