Excellent Returns of inbestMe Value ETF Portfolios in 2025

This report complements previous reports on the exceptional returns of our portfolios at the end of 2025, with a review of the performance of value ETF portfolios.

This article also provides an opportunity to analyze the overall performance of the value factor globally and several popular author-managed value funds in Spain.

The total return of Value investing exceeded the general market in 2025

In our previous reports on Value Investing, we mentioned that in recent years value investing had lagged behind.

In the top chart, it can be seen that at the end of 2025, value stocks (+18.2%) slightly lagged behind growth stocks (20.4%) in price. Still, it is noteworthy that value stocks performed exceptionally in 2025 and were broadly in line with the general index (+19.5%).

However, the total return of the global value index (including dividends, not just price evolution as in the charts above) was 21.67%, slightly above the total return of the general index of 21.63%.

It is also notable that the year-over-year declines of value stocks (-6.2%) were less severe than those of growth stocks (-17.4%) during the tariff war triggered by Trump in April 2025.

The MSCI World expressed in euros, where the U.S. and therefore the dollar have significant weight, fell approximately -15.3% due to the depreciation of the dollar against the euro. The MSCI World Value in euros ended at 4.3%.

Value Stocks (Value Investing) Remain Historically Lagging

Since the launch of our value ETF portfolios (2018), we have reported on the significant gap between the returns of value investing (96%, 9% annualized) compared to the main index (150%, 12% annualized) and, in particular, growth stocks, dominated by tech companies accumulating 205% or 15% annualized.

As shown in the table below, the 2018-2025 period shows the largest difference (6.2%), followed by 2015-2025.

Looking further back, for example since 2000, both styles show more similar annualized returns: 6.6% for growth, 6% for value (see the table below).

Given these differences, the value investor still expects mean reversion. Therefore, maintaining exposure to the value factor can be a good strategy for investors who believe value investing should perform better, with the gap since 1995 being 1.3 percentage points.
Meanwhile, even in this environment, our value ETF portfolios performed very well relative to the market.

Excellent Returns of inbestMe Value Portfolios in 2025

In 2025, all our portfolios generally delivered excellent returns, exceeding expected annual returns (which are, by definition, a medium/long-term average with some years above and others below expectations).

Our indexed value portfolios also benefited from market recovery, particularly in equities, achieving an excellent average return of +13.6%. In 2025, value portfolio returns ranged from 4.7% for profile 1 to 21.5% for profile 10.

The average inbestMe investor (profile 7/10) achieved 15.7% in 2025.

Diversification in our value portfolios helped improve performance relative to global value indices, and partial dollar hedging helped mitigate the depreciation of the dollar against the euro.

Thus, in 2025, inbestMe value portfolios outperformed standard ETF portfolios by 1–3.9 percentage points, or 2.4 points on average. This is because our value portfolios are broken down by macroregions with weights different from global indices, designed from a European investor perspective. Moreover, European value equities performed much better than global indices, gaining 36.5% this year. Even the U.S. enhanced value ETF we use gained 33%, also above the general index.

The top chart shows that although the value factor tends to lag, by the end of 2025, the TAE of inbestMe Value portfolios (average 4.6%) came close to standard portfolios (5.2%). Profile 10 value TAE is 7.7% (even above long-term expectations), still slightly below profile 10 standard TAE of 8.4% at end 2025 (well above expectations).

Important note: inbestMe value ETF portfolios started in 2018. 2017 data in this chart are based on a backtest using the same allocation to compare with standard ETFs started in 2017.

inbestMe Indexed Value Portfolios Will Always Be Among the Best

Since launching our Value portfolios in early 2018, we have periodically compared them to some of the most popular value funds in Spain. These portfolios have navigated difficult periods, including the 2018 correction, the COVID-19 bear market, and inflation/Ukraine-related bear markets. 2023, 2024, and 2025 were recovery years.

Our indexed Value portfolios reached 8 years at the end of 2025. Since then, we have been conducting a comparative analysis with the following value funds in Spain: Azvalor Internacional FI (AZVAINT), Bestinver Internacional FI (BESTINT), Cobas Internacional FI (COBASIN). The inbestMe value ETF portfolio is represented in the table as inbestMe 10.

According to this analysis, the best-performing fund from 2018 to 2025 is Azvalor Internacional (AZVAINT in the table), thanks to its excellent results in 2021 and 2022.

These outstanding results of AZVAINT have not been repeated and can be considered exceptional: in fact, in 2023 and 2024 AZVAINT was the worst fund, and in 2025 the second to last. Here, the saying “past performance is no guarantee of future results” applies, as an investor who had invested in AZVAINT at the beginning of 2023 (just after its two best years) would have accumulated a return of 31.2%, while BESTINT (+57%) and COBASIN (+73%) would have clearly done better. The inbestMe10 portfolio also accumulated significantly more over these last two years: 58%.

On the other hand, over the last two years COBASIN has been the best, but 2018, 2019, and 2020 were so poor for this fund that it still holds the last position in the 2018–2025 period.

The inbestMe10 portfolio was only the best in 2018, 2019, and 2020. But after 8 years, it is positioned as the second-best in cumulative return, with 81%, which is equivalent to a 7.7% annualized return (TAE), thanks to the fact that it has never been the worst and often ranked second.

One of the problems of active management is lack of consistency. Statistics confirm that around 90% of active funds do not outperform their indices, and even if they do, it is not guaranteed to continue in the future. In these repetitive analyses, we see it on a smaller scale: one year one manager will do better (this year Cobas), another year another (Azvalor in 2022 and 2023), and in the long term, indexed management with a value bias prevails, always ranking among the top.

inbestMe Indexed Value Portfolios Have Much Lower Risk and Are More Efficient

Our indexed value portfolios have much lower risk, and therefore are more efficient and better suited for most value investors who do not want to take unnecessary risks by following “author-managed” value funds that often make very aggressive bets on specific companies.

Active value funds make very specific bets, which separates them significantly from the indices, incurring high volatility and suffering much larger maximum drawdowns during the analyzed period: -61% for COBASIN, -54% for AZVAINT. The maximum drawdown of BESTINT was -37% (this fund seems “more indexed”), while inbestMe10 stands out for having the smallest drawdown (-34%).

In the following table, we summarize the most relevant data:

As observed, the analyzed value funds maintain high volatilities (another risk indicator in addition to experiencing large drawdowns), ranging from 17% for BESTINT to 21% for AZVAINT, placing them further to the right (higher risk) in the following chart.

The inbestMe10 portfolio is the only one positioned in the top quadrant of the chart (high return / moderate volatility) thanks to its significantly lower volatility (14%) compared to the value funds, with a return/volatility ratio of 0.54. AZVAINT also scores 0.54, as although it currently has the highest annualized return, it also has the highest volatility (21%). BESTIN and COBASIN fall into the low return / high volatility quadrant, lagging significantly in terms of return/volatility (0.33 and 0.28, respectively).

In conclusion, our indexed value portfolios offer lower volatility and drawdowns, ranking second in return, but thanks to lower volatility, they improve (or match) risk-adjusted returns. Therefore, they are an attractive option for investors seeking exposure to value investing while avoiding the extreme risks associated with active value funds.

You can review other reports; for example, the last two years:

• Exceptional Returns of inbestMe Value ETF Portfolios in 2024
• .inbestMe Indexed Value Portfolios in 2023