During the last bear market, value investors emerged from the fallout of the punctured technology bubble with not only their portfolios but also their reputations enhanced. The current rout has been far less kind on both counts.

To be sure, value-investing is a long-term strategy and every downturn has unique characteristics. According to the concept of "time arbitrage", it remains so successful not only in spite of but because of prolonged periods of underperformance. Fickle investors who abandon languishing stocks and the fund managers drawn to them in bad times leave money on the table for people such as Warren Buffett to produce their good track records.