How to Understand The Small-Stock Rally
Small-caps are drubbing large ones this year. What does it mean for what’s ahead?
4 min
Small stocks so far this year have beaten their large-capitalisation brethren by a wider margin than they have in more than two decades, raising questions about what is driving the outperformance and what it means for the overall market ahead.
The year-to-date return for small-caps through the end of February was a remarkable 25 percentage points greater than that of large-caps (as measured by the 20% of stocks with the smallest market caps vs. the comparative quintile of the largest). While it isn’t unexpected for small-cap portfolios to beat large-caps over time—a long-term tendency that Wall Street analysts refer to as the “size effect”—what is unusual is the magnitude of the outperformance. It has averaged just 0.9 percentage point over all two-month periods since 1926, according to data from Dartmouth professor Ken French.
You have to go back to January and February of 2000, at the top of the internet-stock bubble on Wall Street, to find a two-month stretch in which the small-caps beat the large-caps by more. Their margin of outperformance over those two months was 41 percentage points.
Any parallel to the top of the internet-stock bubble is ominous, to be sure. But there are several idiosyncrasies to small-caps’ recent performance that stand in the way of drawing any straightforward analogies to the frenzy in small stocks that heralded the 2000 tech-stock crash.
Indeed, according to several researchers, small-caps’ recent strength may actually be something else in disguise—that is, it may have to do with factors other than just size, such as the battle between growth and value stocks.
That doesn’t mean there is nothing to worry about in this bull market, where valuations are stretched thin for many stocks. But it does mean that investors who are focused solely on the small-cap/large-cap divergence could be missing the bigger picture.
Here’s why.
1. Value versus growth
One distinction that is crucial for understanding the relative strength of small-caps this year has to do with where small- and large-cap stocks lie on the growth-versus-value spectrum. Small-cap stocks currently are far closer to the value end of the spectrum than large-caps, meaning they are trading for lower prices relative to their net worth.
A stock’s place on this spectrum is defined by its ratio of price to per-share book value, with the highest ratios at the growth extreme and the lowest at the value extreme. Consider the Russell Microcap Index, which contains the smallest 1,000 stocks in the broad-market Russell 3000 index. Its average price-to-book ratio was 2.5 as of the end of February, according to Russell Indexes. That compares with a 4.2 ratio for the Russell 1000 Index (which contains the largest 1,000 stocks) and a 5.7 ratio for the Russell Top 50 Mega-Cap Index (which contains the largest 50 stocks).
These are significant differences, according to Kent Daniel, a finance professor at Columbia University and a former co-chief investment officer at Goldman Sachs. He says that, on average, small-cap growth stocks tend to underperform the market, while small-cap value stocks tend to outperform. Since 1926, he says, the smallest-cap stocks closest to the growth end of the spectrum have lost 3.3% annualized, while the smallest most value-oriented stocks have gained 13.3% annualized.
This pattern has been especially strong in recent months, making it difficult to determine what accounts for small-caps’ relative strength this year. But Prof. Daniel says there is the distinct possibility that it is really a “value effect masquerading as a size effect.” If so, a bet on small-cap relative strength continuing is really a bet that value will outperform growth.
That bet may pay off in coming months, he says, and value could continue to outperform growth for many years. But he also says that value stocks have lagged behind growth stocks for at least a decade now, and while there have been numerous predictions of a value resurgence over that time, it hasn’t happened—at least not yet.
2. Sector bets
The benchmark indexes for small-caps and large-caps have different sector weightings, which also makes it difficult to gauge whether the recent relative strength of small-caps is actually due to company size.
Consider the information-technology sector. The ETF benchmarked to the largest 50 stocks currently has a 38.6% weighting to this sector, more than three times the 12.7% weighting of the Russell Microcap Index.
Conversely, the microcap index has more than 10 times the weighting of the largest-50-stock ETF to the industrials sector (11.7% versus 0.8%) and more than double the allocation to the financials sector (17.6% to 7.1%).
These differences are a big part of small-caps’ year-to-date performance, since industrials and financials have each outperformed the information-technology sector. It was just the opposite for calendar 2020, and sure enough, the smallest stocks lagged behind the largest last year.
Until there are small-cap and large-cap benchmarks with the same sector weightings—Prof. Daniel says he is unaware of any currently—it will be difficult to determine what is driving small stocks’ relative strength. If it is being caused by differences in sector weightings, however, it is likely to persist only if the sectors in which the small-caps are overweight continue outperforming.
3. Is the small-cap effect real?
This discussion also points to a more fundamental question that many researchers have been asking in recent years: Does the small-cap effect even exist, in and of itself? That is, do smaller firms really have higher returns than larger firms, on average, over long periods?
Andrea Frazzini, a principal at AQR Capital Management and an adjunct professor of finance at New York University, has concluded that it exists only among a very narrow group of stocks. He says that some of the relative strength of small-caps in recent months traces to speculative fervour for stocks outside that narrow group, making it risky to bet that it will continue.
According to his research, small-caps are a good bet to outperform the large-caps only if you limit your focus to companies with high financial quality. By financial quality he means firms that are profitable, have robust profit growth and a stable earnings stream and a high dividend-payout policy, among other characteristics. Many of the small companies that have performed the best so far this year don’t qualify.
Companies that have been bid higher in recent weeks through social-media investor campaigns—such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment—are two obvious examples, but they are hardly alone in not qualifying for Prof. Frazzini’s high-quality category. Nearly half of the 2,000 companies in the Russell 2000 small-stock index, for example, lost money in 2020.
Prof. Frazzini’s research therefore suggests that, if you want to bet on a continuation of recent small-cap relative strength, you should focus on small stocks that score high on various measures of financial strength, safety and quality. And don’t sweat the comparisons to that internet-stock frenzy of 20 years ago.
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Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
Americans now think they need at least $1.25 million for retirement, a 20% increase from a year ago, according to a survey by Northwestern Mutual
Office owners are struggling with near record-high vacancy rates
3 min
First, the good news for office landlords: A post-Labor Day bump nudged return-to-office rates in mid-September to their highest level since the onset of the pandemic.
Now the bad: Office attendance in big cities is still barely half of what it was in 2019, and company get-tough measures are proving largely ineffective at boosting that rate much higher.
Indeed, a number of forces—from the prospect of more Covid-19 cases in the fall to a weakening economy—could push the return rate into reverse, property owners and city officials say.
More than before, chief executives at blue-chip companies are stepping up efforts to fill their workspace. Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase are among the companies that have recently vowed to get tougher on employees who don’t show up. In August, Meta told employees they could face disciplinary action if they regularly violate new workplace rules.
But these actions haven’t yet moved the national return rate needle much, and a majority of companies remain content to allow employees to work at least part-time remotely despite the tough talk.
Most employees go into offices during the middle of the week, but floors are sparsely populated on Mondays and Fridays. In Chicago, some September days had a return rate of over 66%. But it was below 30% on Fridays. In New York, it ranges from about 25% to 65%, according to Kastle Systems, which tracks security-card swipes.
Overall, the average return rate in the 10 U.S. cities tracked by Kastle Systems matched the recent high of 50.4% of 2019 levels for the week ended Sept. 20, though it slid a little below half the following week.
The disappointing return rates are another blow to office owners who are struggling with vacancy rates near record highs. The national office average vacancy rose to 19.2% last quarter, just below the historical peak of 19.3% in 1991, according to Moody’s Analytics preliminary third-quarter data.
Business leaders in New York, Detroit, Seattle, Atlanta and Houston interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they have seen only slight improvements in sidewalk activity and attendance in office buildings since Labor Day.
“It feels a little fuller but at the margins,” said Sandy Baruah, chief executive of the Detroit Regional Chamber, a business group.
Lax enforcement of return-to-office rules is one reason employees feel they can still work from home. At a roundtable business discussion in Houston last week, only one of the 12 companies that attended said it would enforce a return-to-office policy in performance reviews.
“It was clearly a minority opinion that the others shook their heads at,” said Kris Larson, chief executive of Central Houston Inc., a group that promotes business in the city and sponsored the meeting.
Making matters worse, business leaders and city officials say they see more forces at work that could slow the return to office than those that could accelerate it.
Covid-19 cases are up and will likely increase further in the fall and winter months. “If we have to go back to distancing and mask protocols, that really breaks the office culture,” said Kathryn Wylde, head of the business group Partnership for New York City.
Many cities are contending with an increase in homelessness and crime. San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., which are struggling with these problems, are among the lowest return-to-office cities in the Kastle System index.
About 90% of members surveyed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said that the city couldn’t recover until homelessness and public safety problems were addressed, said Rachel Smith, chief executive. That is taken into account as companies make decisions about returning to the office and how much space they need, she added.
Cuts in government services and transportation are also taking a toll. Wait times for buses run by Houston’s Park & Ride system, one of the most widely used commuter services, have increased partly because of labor shortages, according to Larson of Central Houston.
The commute “is the remaining most significant barrier” to improving return to office, Larson said.
Some landlords say that businesses will have more leverage in enforcing return-to-office mandates if the economy weakens. There are already signs of such a shift in cities that depend heavily on the technology sector, which has been seeing slowing growth and layoffs.
But a full-fledged recession could hurt office returns if it results in widespread layoffs. “Maybe you get some relief in more employees coming back,” said Dylan Burzinski, an analyst with real-estate analytics firm Green Street. “But if there are fewer of those employees, it’s still a net negative for office.”
The sluggish return-to-office rate is leading many city and business leaders to ask the federal government for help. A group from the Great Lakes Metro Chambers Coalition recently met with elected officials in Washington, D.C., lobbying for incentives for businesses that make commitments to U.S. downtowns.
Baruah, from the Detroit chamber, was among the group. He said the chances of such legislation being passed were low. “We might have to reach crisis proportions first,” he said. “But we’re trying to lay the groundwork now.”
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
Americans now think they need at least $1.25 million for retirement, a 20% increase from a year ago, according to a survey by Northwestern Mutual
