Cambria Fund Profile – Cambria Global Value ETF (GVAL)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When you're advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales. Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.

**Meb Faber** (0:35)
Welcome to The Meb Faber Show, where the focus is on helping you grow and preserve your wealth. Join us as we discuss the craft of investing and uncover new and profitable ideas, all to help you grow wealthier and wiser. Better Investing starts here.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:48)
Meb Faber is the co-founder and chief investment officer at Cambria Investment Management.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:51)
For more information, visit cambriainvestments.com.

**Meb Faber** (0:57)
Howdy, podcast listeners. We've got a little bit of a different show for you today. Today, I'm going to talk to you about the Cambria Global Value ETF, ticker symbol, GVAL, G-V-A-L. We've been living through a stretch where the market's winners have felt pretty concentrated, and that shapes how people invest. Because after a decade of strong returns for US large cap stocks, it's been easy to think that that's the whole playbook. And if you diversified, it's like eating your vegetables. You know you should eat them, but you're not exactly excited about it. And it's not hard to see why. The biggest US companies have led the way. But the outperformance of US stocks presents risks that can lurk underneath the surface. Risks people often don't recognize until they show up. Concentration risk, valuation risk, and the risk that the next decade might not look like the last. This is where investors can get put in a tough spot.
We published a white paper a few years ago called The Bear Market and Diversification Index, that we believe is relevant right now. You can do all the right things, diversify globally, rebalance, keep fees low, and still spend years watching a concentrated US heavy index run away from your portfolio. So if you're caught asking yourself, why do we own foreign stocks? Why not just buy the thing that's been working? You're not alone. We don't pretend to know when market leadership might change. It could be next quarter or years from now, or it already may have shifted. But we do think it's worth being ready for. If returns start showing up in places many investors haven't been paying attention to, you'll want a portfolio that can participate. That's exactly what today's fund is trying to capture, the Cambria Global Value ETF ticker GVAL.
In 2025, GVAL put up a very strong year. The fund returned roughly 55 percent on a net asset value basis, leading all US diversified active ETFs in 2025
2026 is shaping up to be a strong year as well. You may not have noticed because US stocks still posted solid returns in 2025 and so far in 2026 as well. And I want to say two things right away because it's easy to get carried away here. First of all, we all know past performance doesn't guarantee future results. A year like that can happen, especially in parts of the market that are volatile and deeply out of favor, but that doesn't necessarily mean the future will be similar. Second, the point isn't to celebrate a number, but rather to understand what it signals about neglected parts of the market when sentiment flips. In many ways, 2025 was a reminder that markets rotate, leadership changes, and the investments many people have written off can come back to life very quickly. It's sort of like dry kindling, one spark, and the next thing you know, you could have an inferno.
US mega cap dominance isn't a law of nature, regime shift, asset classes, and market sectors that lead in one period don't always lead in another, and currently, many portfolios are making the same implicit choice, heavy exposure to the market's most popular and most expensive names.
GMO found that from 1957 to 2023, the 10 largest stocks in the S&P 500 underperformed an equal weighted index of the remaining 490 stocks by 2.4% per year.
But the last decade has been a very notable departure from that trend, with the largest 10 outperforming by a massive 4.9% per year on average. Likely, the statistic would be even more dramatic if updated for the last two years. Markets can't stay expensive longer than many think is reasonable. But if the environment shifts, growth expectations begin ratcheting down, investors become leery of high valuations in favor cash flow or global diversification, concentration can turn from a tailwind into a headwind. This is where global value strategies come in. The global stock market is far bigger than just the United States alone, and yet most US investors hold portfolios that are overwhelmingly domestic. There's nothing wrong with owning US stocks, but it's still just one country, one currency, and increasingly driven by its largest constituents. As of May 2026, the S&P 500's top 10 constituents represent 39.3% of the S&P 500 weight. Further, the valuations across global markets are not uniform. At any point in time, some countries tend to be expensive, some are cheap, some are in that messy middle ground. But as of 2026, the valuation differential between the US stock market and the rest of the world is at one of the widest points in history. And if you're willing to go where most investors aren't looking, you might just find some excellent out-of-favor opportunities just waiting to be discovered. That's the thesis behind GVAL. Go where valuations are low, even if it's non-consensus. Here's how the portfolio is built. The fund methodology begins with a universe of about 45 countries located in both developed and emerging markets by using a composite of long-term valuation metrics like the 10-year cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, but also measures based on dividends and cash flow too.