"The professors calculated this by constructing a portfolio out of the 30% of publicly-traded stocks with the lowest price-to-book ratios; they rebalanced this portfolio once a year. Transaction costs were not included in their calculations.

"This impressive bear-market performance was not out of character. During the 1972-1974 bear market, during which the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index lost some 42%, value stocks gained nearly 40%.

"Which stocks should you buy if you think there is a good chance that the bear market in March will resume in earnest? Value stocks would appear to be ideal candidates. That's because they tend to have far less downside risk than the broad market.

"But what if you want to hedge your bets, on the theory that there is a not inconsiderable chance that the stock market could show impressive strength over the coming month? Once again, you could do a lot worse than buying -- you guessed it -- a diversified package of value stocks.

"You'd normally think that any asset class with returns this impressive during bear markets would lose big during bull markets. But this is not the case with value stocks. Consider all months since July 1926 in which the broad market outperformed Treasury bills; during these months, according to Professors Fama and French, value stocks produced an annualized return of 4.7%.

"What's the catch? It's that value stocks typically don't outperform the broad market when it is gaining. So, in effect, value stocks offer us the prospect of not losing during bear markets, in return for gaining during bull markets at a below-market rate.

"While that seems like an attractive trade-off, coming as it does now in the wake of the severe market correction that began last October, many a money manager will tell you that --from a psychological point of view -- many clients find it harder to gain less money than the market when it is going up than it is to lose money alongside the broad market when it is declining.

"So in deciding whether or not to pay attention to the value stocks that are mentioned later in this column, you first need to determine whether you are willing to gain at a below-market rate if the bull market resumes in earnest, in return for having a fighting chance of not losing money if the market proceeds to fall off a cliff.

"If you are, here's a list of value stocks that are recommended by four or more of the newsletters on the Hulbert Financial Digest monitored list that have beaten the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index over the last decade on a risk-adjusted basis. (To determine whether one of the stocks recommended by four or more of these top performers qualifies as a value stock, I focused on issues within the S&P 500/Citigroup Value Index.)

"AFLAC Incorporated (NYSE: AFL), National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV), and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) are each recommended by of the outperforming advisors. Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) are recommended by 5 outperfoming advisors.

"Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) is recommended by 6 outperformers. And General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) is recommended by 9 on the Hulbert Financial Digest monitored list that have beaten the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index over the last decade on a risk-adjusted basis."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers the latest market commentary and favorite investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.