The Dow just scraped a record high on Wednesday while other indexes fell, led down by the Russell 2000 — the key index of stocks with a small market capitalization.Our call of the day is from the financial research specialists at Leuthold Group, led by Doug Ramsey, James Paulsen, and Scott Opsal. They say that “a long-term leadership cycle” in small-cap stocks is under way — and it may be bad news for big indexes.
Now, here’s the kicker: In all of the seven past cases, it was only early or midway through a cycle where small-caps led stocks that the relative strength of the Russell 2000 breached the 25% mark.Since 1960, annualized returns for the S&P 500 were almost 6% lower when small-cap stocks have led. In fact, the researchers at Leuthold say that a portfolio of 50% cash and 50% small-caps could match the S&P 500’s volatility in the next few years while actually exceeding its return.
Shares in Canadian cannabis company Tilray TLRY, +50.91% rocketed 50% higher on Wednesday, extending gains from Tuesday, and are up another 15% or so in the premarket. It appears to be the latest heavily-shorted stock targeted by investors from the Reddit group WallStreetBets — the crowd behind the GameStop frenzy.
Car maker Volkswagen VOW, +0.61% and software giant Microsoft MSFT, -0.39% are teaming up on an automated driving project.