NO ONE WOULD MISTAKE WALL STREET

for Fifth Avenue, but they do have one thing in common: As sure as hemlines rise or fall, or ties grow fat or narrow, investing styles come into and go out of fashion. This year, you’ll find value stocks in some of the smartest portfolios. As the moniker implies, value stocks are those that are cheap in relation to a company’s sales, profits or underlying assets. And for reasons that are less whimsical than the fashion dictates of Fifth Avenue, shopping in the bargain basement is paying off so far this year.

That hasn’t been the case for a long time. Over the 10 calendar years from 2006 through 2015, shares of fast-growing companies in Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index beat the index’s value stocks seven times—and one of value’s winning years (2010) was just about a tie. Over the period, the S&P 500 Growth index thumped the S&P 500 Value index by an average of 3.2 percentage points per year.

But so far this year, value is ahead. Year-to-date through June 30, the S&P Value index returned 6.2%, compared with 1.6% for the S&P Growth index. And midsize-company value funds, small-company value funds and large company value funds occupy the top three slots so far this year among Morningstar’s nine style categories for domestic mutual funds.