The key investment discussions for participants and presenters centered around value investment as selection method and when the value approach will be coming back to provide good returns. Or will we continue to see fast growth companies in digital, biotech and conceptual business disrupters continue to leave value investors in the dust?
Another subject of discussion was the impact from fewer sell side analysts which leaves small/mid cap companies 'under investigated' and hence good hunting ground for independent value investors. New regulation only started in 2018, so the coming years will show how this plays out.
Several investors pointed to the fact that the China infrastructure driven boom in 2000’s and the subsequent lower investments in 2010’s has left several segments underinvested. With steady global growth (assuming a harmful global trade war is avoided) the supply/demand balance is turning in favor of miners, shipping and other traditional cyclical industries.
Time will show and for Nordic Value Investor Conference 2019 the scorecards will be updated. Investment cases takes several years to unfold, so scorecard 2018 will continue to be updated