Small-capitalization companies have been the relative standout performers of the U.S. stock market of late, with the group seen as offering investors some relief from the political and regulatory headwinds that have otherwise been dogging the economy’s largest names.
While small stocks have lagged over the longer term — eclipsed by the red-hot growth in megacap technology and internet names in 2017 in particular — they have staged something of a comeback over the past several weeks, seeing both stronger performance and less volatility than large-cap indexes like the S&P 500.
Thus far this year, the Russell 2000 index
RUT, +0.39%
is up 0.8%, compared with the 0.8% drop of the S&P 500
SPX, -0.31%
and the 1.7% decline of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, -0.63%
which comprises 30 of the largest stocks in the economy.
Additionally, while the Cboe Volatility Index
VIX, -2.54%
— which uses S&P 500 options to calculate expectations for volatility over the coming 30 days—is up more than 80% thus far this year, the Cboe Russell 2000 Volatility Index
RVX, +0.82%
is up a comparatively lighter 33% over the same period. The respective VIX measures tend to rise as stocks fall.
Read: There’s been a historic amount of earthshaking stock-market volatility this year
Investors have noticed this trend and reallocated accordingly. Over the past month, according to FactSet data, $1.8 billion has flowed into small-cap ETFs listed in the U.S. About $18.6 billion has been withdrawn from large-cap exchange-traded funds.
Small stocks are seen as less correlated to some of the issues that have driven trading in both directions over the past several weeks. Because smaller companies tend to derive a higher portion of their revenue from the U.S., they’re expected to see less of a headwind from any ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China, which have spurred a retreat from large-cap names. This factor could also insulate them from the possibility of a U.S.-led military strike in Syria, the latest example of geopolitical uncertainty weighing on stocks.
Whereas 69.7% of the S&P 500’s revenue exposure comes from the U.S., according to FactSet data. The Dow has the least U.S. revenue exposure, at 61.7%, while U.S. revenue exposure for the Russell 2000 is the highest by far at 79.4%.
The trend of favoring small-cap continued on Wednesday, when the Russell 2000 index rose 0.4%, outpacing the 0.4% decline of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the slight negative activity in the S&P 500.
Source : MTV
