N°24-76: Intrinsic Value: A Solution to the Declining Performance of Value Strategies

The paper proposes to use intrinsic value as an alternative measure of fundamentals in predicting stock returns. We construct intrinsic value as the sum of the book value of equity and the present value of future economic profits. The CAPM alpha of a long-short portfolio of large stocks based on the intrinsic-value-to-market ratio is 56 bps per month between 1999 and 2023 when the book-to-market ratio and similarly constructed price multiples fail to predict returns. Given the low turnover of the strategy, accounting for transaction costs has a marginal impact on its net alpha. We argue that the underperformance of strategies based on traditional valuation multiples stems from their failure to model future economic profits, which matter the most in low discount rate environments.