NEW YORK (CNNfn) - For two long years Alan Snyder waited for shares of Dress Barn to make their move.
Snyder, president of Snyder Capital Management and a die-hard believer in value stocks, liked the retailer's solid earnings. And he loved its cheap share price. In a rational market, he reasoned, other investors would agree.
They didn't.
"It went nowhere for a long time," said Snyder who manages $2 billion in money for large institutions.
But that just changed. Dress Barn (DBRN: Research, Estimates) has surged about 27 percent in the last two weeks, performing more like the high-flying technology stocks that have suddenly become April's laggards.
"It finally got some respect," he said.
 Rodney Dangerfield makes for an apt comparison. Stocks with low price-to-earnings ratios favored by Snyder have lagged in recent years. At the same time, investors chased the highest growth companies, showing a willingness to buy them at prices that defied historical precedent.
They were rewarded with huge returns. Until recently.
The Nasdaq composite index, heavily weighted with high-priced tech stocks, has fallen about 20 percent since setting a March 10 high. In the same period, the Dow Jones industrial average, home to many beaten-up value shares, is up about 15 percent.
No wonder value investors are smiling.
"Free at last," said Snyder, who sees the Nasdaq's crack as the start of something bigger.
 Bill Nygren, who manages two value mutual funds -- the Oakmark Fund and the Oakmark Select Fund -- agrees.
"In the long-run, it's inevitable that stock prices move toward their true intrinsic value," Nygren said. "A move toward rationality would be very good for our portfolio."
Pity the value guy
In recent years, the road to value investing has been a bumpy one.
Faced with redemptions and poor returns, a frustrated Julian Robertson last month closed down his once-successful Tiger Management group of hedge funds.
 "There is no point in subjecting our investors to risk in a market which I frankly do not understand," the famed value investor wrote in a farewell letter to clients.
And analysts say Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha, may no longer command the respect he once did after stocks picks like Coca-Cola (KO: Research, Estimates) and Gillette (G: Research, Estimates) faltered.
Tech reevaluated
Lately, though, chinks in technology's armor have emerged. Two influential Wall Street strategists, Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs, and Richard McCabe of Merrill Lynch, recently questioned technology's ability to keep leading the market higher.
Investors listened, handing the Nasdaq in April its two biggest point losses of all time.
But Donald Selkin says news of technology's death is greatly exaggerated. The chief investment strategist at Joseph Gunnar notes that tech's obituary has been written before - once earlier this year and previously in April, 1999. The Nasdaq surged 85 percent last year.
"I still think that the growth in technology is so substantial that it's still the place to be in the long-term," Selkin said
He's sticking with Cisco Systems (CSCO: Research, Estimates), Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates) and Nokia (NOK: Research, Estimates).
But Oakmark's Nygren says this time is different. Technology's excesses, he said, are now more extreme, meaning there's a lot more air to be let out of the bubble. He forecasts the market will be unable to digest an upcoming supply of new tech initial public offerings. And the supply issue, he says, could get worse as executives sell newly public shares when lock-up periods expire.
When it comes to his portfolio, he certainly likes what he's seen recently. Nygren says his Oakmark Select fund is up 12 percent in the last four weeks; The Oakmark Fund has jumped 17 percent in the same period.
Times Mirror (TMC: Research, Estimates), one of his stocks, received a generous takeover offer from Tribune last month.
"It's demonstrative that if investors don't price companies rationally, big corporations will," he said.
Still, when it comes to the so-called return to rationality, some money managers are still waiting.
Alan Snyder, pleased with the gains to Dress Barn, hasn't profited as much with another value pick, Leucadia National (LUK: Research, Estimates), a small financial services firm. The stock gained 1-1/4 Tuesday to close at 24. But that's still well below its 52-week high of 33-3/8.
"One of these days they are going to be recognized," Snyder said. 
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