Broken Data. Hidden Opportunity | GMO's Warren Chiang on Deep Value’s Historic Setup
Excess ReturnsJune 13, 202500:57:10

Broken Data. Hidden Opportunity | GMO's Warren Chiang on Deep Value’s Historic Setup

GMO’s Warren Chiang joins us for a deep dive into the art and science of systematic value investing. In this episode, Warren shares how his team has refined traditional value investing to adapt to an intangible-heavy world, the structural reasons deep value is historically cheap today, and how top-down insights from GMO’s asset allocation group are implemented in practice. We also explore how ESG, momentum, macro, and geopolitical shifts—including the China decoupling—are integrated into portfolio construction, and what investors can learn from GMO’s global perspective on valuations.

Topics Covered:

Why GMO didn’t abandon value—it improved it

The difference between "value" and "valuation"

How restating financial statements improves valuation accuracy

GMO’s two-step top-down and bottom-up ETF strategy

The deep value opportunity: why it’s never been cheaper

How GMO incorporates quality in a forward-looking way

Why momentum and macro are excluded from some strategies

How ESG is treated as a portfolio risk—not virtue signaling

The China supply chain shift and the Beyond China strategy

Passive investing’s long-term impact on price discovery

Managing risk, constraints, and position sizing in quant portfolios

Whether today’s market mirrors the dot-com bubble

What’s driving valuation gaps across global markets

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro: The divorce between valuation and financial statements
01:00 Why GMO improved value rather than abandoning it
03:00 Defining forward-looking valuation vs. traditional value
05:00 Restating financials to fix distorted inputs
08:00 From asset allocation insights to portfolio construction
11:00 The deep value opportunity: how rare is this setup?
13:00 Adjusting for intangibles in valuation models
15:00 How GMO defines and integrates quality
16:45 Momentum’s role—or lack thereof—in deep value
18:00 Product design and factor exposure tradeoffs
19:00 ESG: risk factor, not moral factor
20:00 Why macro is excluded in value ETFs but vital in EM
22:00 Does value perform better in high-rate environments?
23:00 Portfolio concentration, sizing, and sector constraints
25:00 Rebalancing frequency and turnover management
28:00 Passive investing’s impact on price discovery
31:00 GMO’s global valuation outlook: deep value vs. the world
34:00 Is this another dot-com bubble?
36:00 Deep value across global markets: EM vs. DM
38:00 Country constraints and international risk
40:00 Modeling tariff exposure and exogenous risks
42:00 AI, text analysis, and quant research advances
43:30 GMO’s Beyond China thesis and manufacturing shift
47:00 Can EM really absorb China’s manufacturing share?
49:00 Tariffs and the weaponization of trade
51:00 Will global trade shifts cause long-term inflation?
52:45 The one investing belief Warren’s peers might not share
55:00 One lesson Warren would teach every investor