What would Cliff Asness ask St. Peter at the pearly gates?

Flirting with Models

In July 2020 I interviewed Cliff Asness, co-founder of AQR. This was several months after he penned a perspective piece titled The Valuesburg Address, where he waxed poetic about the multi-year drawdown in the value factor.

Nearly three years later, he recently wrote the perspective piece titled, The Bubble Has Not Popped. I say wrote, but it is just a single image of the value spread between growth and value, adjusted for just about every possible noise factor you can imagine. The spread still hovers near generational highs.

This isn’t Cliff’s first value drawdown. While never easy, I suspect his past experience at least makes it a bit easier.

In this archive clip, I wanted to highlight the wisdom of experience. To me, that entails understanding what you know, what you wish you could know, and what you believe.

I hope you enjoy.