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Buy GVAL Cambria Global Value ETF?


indythinker85

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I am a dep contrarian investor and dont have time for company analysis usually. A big part of my strategy is buying countries based on very low valuations P/B, P/E, etc especially CAPE. I did well in GREK, EIRL some others and not as well in RSX. There is a new ETF from Me Faber which basically uses this strategy - the Cambria Global Value ETF http://www.cambriafunds.com/gval/, it was just unveiled last week. Besides for taxes (which i really cannot do anything about) wouldnt it make sense to sell the ETFs and just buy this one? I am not asking if this is a good strategy or not (you either believe in buying low CAPE countries or you dont) I am just asking is there any reason not to just own this one ETF instead of owning several (such as RSX GREK etc)? Also this would prevent? future costs since if GREK appreciated and was sold if i owned individually I think taxes would be lower than if GVAL sold it (they own companies not ETFs)? Any advice would be appreciated! ETF just rolled out, havent gotten time to fully research, but wanted some input from fellow value investors as part of my process.

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i like the idea behind this etf.  the main thing that gave me pause is that most of meb faber's etf introductions (GTAA, FYLD, etc.) have underperformed.  not sure if something is off with the execution or just short-term fluctuation.  will definitely research this one.

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i like the idea behind this etf.  the main thing that gave me pause is that most of meb faber's etf introductions (GTAA, FYLD, etc.) have underperformed.  not sure if something is off with the execution or just short-term fluctuation.  will definitely research this one.

 

Thanks I am also looking at this; please let us know your thoughts on this issue when you do further research.

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i like the idea behind this etf.  the main thing that gave me pause is that most of meb faber's etf introductions (GTAA, FYLD, etc.) have underperformed.  not sure if something is off with the execution or just short-term fluctuation.  will definitely research this one.

 

I've also been intrigued by each of Meb's ETFs, but GVAL is the first one that I have bought, and I plan to make it most, if not all, of the "international" portion of my portfolio.

 

My main rationale is that the GVAL source of outperformance seems the most resilient against arbitrage (for instance, in time, I believe the "shareholder yield" concept will get priced into markets, so the future may not look like the past for SYLD and FYLD).

 

The other factor that probably swayed me on this one is the fact that I had already been considering using ETFs to invest in beaten-down single-country markets. This just makes it easier and does it in a more rigorous way.

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Isnt it easier and cheaper to just buy one ETF than have multiple? Also he buys companies to access markets where there are no ETFs currently.

 

I really hope someone makes value ETFs for beaten down markets ie Greece passive low P/BV or whatever, but i expect triple leveraged whacky ETFs to come out way before that.

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Isnt it easier and cheaper to just buy one ETF than have multiple? Also he buys companies to access markets where there are no ETFs currently.

 

I really hope someone makes value ETFs for beaten down markets ie Greece passive low P/BV or whatever, but i expect triple leveraged whacky ETFs to come out way before that.

 

Yeah it seems pretty reasonable. Total MER is 0.69%. If you like the weightings, this seems like an easy wway to do it for sure. This looks like a solid product.

 

Now if only he ran a magicformula screen within the markets!

 

http://www.cambriafunds.com/assets/pdf/GVAL-FactSheet.pdf

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  • 1 month later...

I like the idea of this but it's tough to invest in someone without much of a track record.  He has some quantitative system for picking individual stocks in the beaten down countries, that's where I get concerned.  How do you know that his selection process works?  It just seems there is a large amount of trust here.  Don't get me wrong, I am hoping he kills it but for the next few years I will just watch.

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  • 8 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Just a short term update:

 

Since inception both are negative...(per morningstar price):

 

GVAL -22.16%

EFA -8.74%

 

Ouch.

 

Meb posted an update on his blog at the beginning of the year that explains (not excuses) this:

 

http://mebfaber.com/2015/01/01/how-did-cape-do-in-2014/

 

If you look at his backtesting of the strategy, 2014 was a pretty strong outlier in terms of underperformance of the strategy. Like many quantitative strategies that appear to outperform over long periods of time, it appears the outperformance is relatively clustered by year - you might go three or five years where the strategy doesn't outperform, then one or two or three years where it does tremendously.

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Attached is the historical record from the book. 2014 appears to be a terrible year for the strategy.  However, I have faith in the strategy with a longer term horizon and have made this a 30% position.

 

 

It looks like 2014 would be the year with the worst underperformance, followed by 2009. Interestingly, it looks like it has underperformed seven of the last nine years (if you include 2014). Either the strategy is breaking/broken, or it is has a hell of a streak of outperformance ahead of it in order to revert to the longer-term mean.

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