Highlights from the Value Investing Seminar in Italy; Out-of-favor sectors

1) My Italian friend Ciccio Azzollini and I just wrapped up our annual Value Investing Seminar in Italy...

We hosted the event – our 20th one! – last Thursday and Friday in Trani. More than a dozen speakers presented and I'm in the process of getting permission from them so I can share the best ideas from the seminar with my readers.

Of course, I can share my own slides (most of which I've already included in recent e-mails, if you've been following along), so today I'll just share the new ones from my presentation on Thursday...

I started by showing the performance of the 16 stock ideas I had shared at the seminar last year. I'm pleased to say that there were no blowups... and, on average, they rose 33% (not including dividends) – handily surpassing the 24% return of the S&P 500 Index, led by Nvidia (NVDA):

Then I showed how my 12 least favorite "Dirty Dozen" stocks performed – as you can see, they declined by an average of 33%:

After covering various macroeconomic indicators – GDP and consumer spending are up, while inflation and unemployment are down from the highs – I shared a number of slides with charts from the June 6 State of the Markets and June 23 Week in Charts posts from Creative Planning's Charlie Bilello on out-of-favor sectors.

I started with this chart from Bilello's Week in Charts post on small-cap stocks, which have been trailing badly this year:

In fact, it's not just this year – they've been trading at a quarter-century low relative to the S&P 500:

The last time this happened, small-cap stocks outperformed by a wide margin:

It's a similar story among value stocks, which have also been trading at a quarter-century low relative to growth stocks:

Similarly, they also subsequently outperformed by a wide margin:

Lastly, I showed that U.S. stocks have outperformed international ones for 16 years running – recently reaching an all-time relative high:

I concluded my presentation by saying that I would hang on to the large-cap tech winners that I had picked a year ago... but would also look to put new cash to work in small- and mid-cap value stocks and, if they're within your circle of competence, international stocks.

In tomorrow's e-mail, I'll share highlights from some of the other presentations at the Value Investing Seminar, so stay tuned for that.

But in the meantime, back here at Stansberry Research, my team and I have also been on the hunt for opportunities... and we're sharing our latest idea in this month's issue of Stansberry's Investment Advisory later today, after the market closes.

As we explain, it's a business that's rolling up a fragmented industry... and its outstanding management has rewarded shareholders with fantastic long-term returns.

If you aren't already a subscriber, you can learn more about the Investment Advisory and find out how to put your name on the list to receive this brand-new recommendation when it publishes later today by clicking here.

Lastly, I'll wrap up today with a few pictures from the Value Investing Seminar...

In the lower left is my friend David Berman of hedge fund Durban Capital, who brought the house down with a chart showing how his investment performance steadily declined with the birth of each of his six children... and in the lower right is Ciccio and his girlfriend, surrounded by me and my family (I've posted additional pictures from our visits to various beautiful towns in the Puglia region on Facebook here and here):

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.