Financial Issues Forum Presents George Athanassakos on Value vs. Growth Investing

Featured Events | Dec 04, 2023 | Gabelli School of Business

George Athanassakos, Ph.D., was the guest speaker during the November 2, 2023 Financial Issues Forum, a virtual event hosted by Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business Center for Global Security Analysis, the Museum of American Finance, and the CFA Society New York. He gave a talk titled “Value vs. Growth Investing and the Future of Stock Prices.” Athanassakos is a professor of finance and the Ben Graham Chair in Value Investing at the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario. He also is the founder and managing director of The Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing, which he launched in 2006, and the founder and managing director of the Center for the Advancement of Value Investing Education, which he launched in 2008. During his presentation, Athanassakos argued that the hefty average nominal and real stock returns experienced over the last 30 years will not be repeated in the next 30 years and that profit margins will be eroded going forward. He also predicted that the effect of higher interest rates on stocks along with the erosion of profit margins will be predictably negative in contrast to the positive effect that lower interest rates and higher profit margins had on stocks over the last 30 years. The stock price of companies that enjoyed the greatest profit margins and benefited the most from low interest rates over that period, i.e., growth stocks, will face pressure. He asserted that value will outperform growth and that riding the ETF bandwagon will not work. Athanassakos noted that stock picking and fundamental analysis will be key to outperformance. Click here to watch the full presentation.