In what could be called a tortoise (value) vs. hare (growth) matchup, the tortoise appears to be winning this year. In the past month, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B +1.8%) (BRK.A +1.5%) increases its lead on the more mercurial Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK -3.0%).
Of course, Berkshire could be getting a leg up from Apple's (AAPL -1.1%) 17% gain in the past month. Apple is Berkshire's biggest equity holding and made up about half of the investment firm's equity portfolio (as of Dec. 10), according to Business Insider.
In the past month (as of Monday's close), Berkshire's B (NYSE:BRK.B) shares rose 1.4%, exceeding the S&P 500's 0.2% decline and Ark Innovation's (NYSEARCA:ARKK) 20% drop as seen in the graph below.
Ark Innovation (ARKK) had a sizeable lead on Berkshire in February when retail investors piled into popular stay-at-home trades like Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), Teladoc (NYSE:TDOC), and Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM), all stocks included in the ETF.
Since then, all four tech names have lagged the S&P 500, with only Coinbase managing a gain for the year.
SA contributor Steven Fiorillo calls Berkshire (BRK.B) a "complete value opportunity in a market obsessed with growth."
Last week, BofA Securities said long-duration tech is now trading like the post-dot-com bubble in 2000 and 2001.