An investing style favoring companies with sturdy finances has gained 3.8% over the past two months, making it the best-performing factor among eight tracked by Barclays, as worries around artificial intelligence and Federal Reserve policy drive a rotation into quality. Barclays' long-short quality basket rose 1.9% on Thursday alone, when a semiconductor selloff dragged the Nasdaq 100 down 1.6%. The factor had been largely abandoned by AI-focused traders, pushing its enterprise-value-to-sales multiple to the bottom-11th percentile of two decades of data, a level from which quality stocks have posted six-month gains 92% of the time historically. Barclays' global head of equities tactical strategies Alex Altmann said the fading of AI capital-spending and easy-money tailwinds makes quality a "port in a storm" if the investment cycle weakens. The basket includes names such as DexCom, Williams-Sonoma, Kohl's, Fastenal, Seagate Technology, Planet Fitness, Morgan Stanley, and Moderna.
Barclays PLC
Morgan Stanley
DexCom Inc
Moderna Inc
Fastenal Company
Seagate Technology PLC
