I came across a debate between a value investor and a momentum trader on Twitter for about the 500th time. If you ask me they are both wasting their breath arguing over which is better and why etc.
There is plenty of data backing up both strategies, suggesting both are factors that create alpha. So, what does that tell you? To me it says it is about execution.
For example, take two investors outperforming the market. Alice is a value investor and Bob is a momentum investor. Alice discovers a stock trading far too cheap and buys it for a $1. She patiently waits and eventually the company deliver and the market rerates the stock to 2 dollars. She decides it’s run too far and no longer cheap and decides to sell. The same stock shows up on bobs radar as a stock heading up with a good story, improved liquidity and currently on people’s radar and he decides to buy a $2.
So how are both these people are outperforming, surely one is making a good decision to buy or sell and the other is not. But these two people are not necessarily competing against each other and it is possible that they are both making a good decision.
Alpha is a zero-sum game and there are plenty of ways to create it, but you need to beat the people that are playing the same or similar game to you. “You Need an EDGE, in the specific game you are playing”
Arguing over which is better is kind of moot or just semantics. Find a strategy that is best suited to you, understand exactly which game you are playing, no your strategy intimately and execute it well.