Ok, the past five years has been great for the stock market indexes, but not for many value investors. Some of the best investors in the world have been performing poorly over the past few years. Billionaire Warren Buffett, has been a victim this past year as well as many others. What is the problem?

Well, the market has been playing favorites and placing all bets on certain industries like it has in the past except that it has occurred for a longer period of time within fewer industries. This has mostly been technology companies which have skyrocketed and many other industries haven't been doing much as far as stock price.

However, in the past, industries like clothing companies become favorites and the market values them highly, while other times, the value of these companies tanks and they are worth less. This has happened in many industries in the past, but generally over a long period of time such as ten years, many of these industries will go up. Well, this hasn't been happening the past few years. Technology companies are getting the dollars, while many other stocks are left in the gutter.

Investors such as Warren Buffett are invested in primarily non-technology companies that have done alright as companies, but the stocks have been performing poorly. However, like Warren Buffett has stated, eventually stock prices will match performance of the underlying business. Stocks in non-tech companies will eventually become so attractive that investors will start purchasing them again.

This may take alot of patience, though. For those that are less patient, finding a good company that you know intimately and investing heavily in that when the price becomes attractive is probably the best thing to do. However, trying to come up with new ways of justifying a purchase after stocks move up heavily seems like a poor strategy. As shown in the past, herd mentality (the ability of people to do the same things) will eventually occur and bargains can be found.

We have seen people change strategies and we have seen some of the results, though. One of the most successful money managers of all time, George Soros, has enourmous amounts of money for his clients by changing his strategy. His company started investing heavily in technology companies and the value of these stocks fell and now, he has lost many clients and his team is quitting.

So, it may be a good idea to stick with time-tested methods of making money as Buffett has done so well. I mean if you have a strategy that has had good results over 40years, should you change it because you have had 4years that weren't so great? Sure, the internet changes the way business is done, but that doesn't mean you should start dumping everything that isn't technology or internet related.

Warren Buffet's companies are non-tech companies, but today it is very hard for almost any company to escape technology or the internet. Buffett's GEICO, insurance company uses the internet to sell insurance. Many other seemlessly, non-tech companies, may appear at the surface appear to be non-tech related, but their is alot of technology within non-tech organizations. The difference is that its not so obvious as "tech companies" and these companies are consumers of the technology rather than producers. However, the companies underlying performance should be helped by the efficiencies from technology.

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