small-cap ETFs

Sure, U.S. small-cap stocks and the related exchange-traded funds have recently been resurgent. Give the widely followed Russell 2000 Index some credit for jumping more than 4 percent over the past month to bring its year-to-date gain to almost 11 percent. An 11 percent year-to-date gain is nice,...

It is widely known that small caps are more volatile than large-cap stocks. For example, the widely followed Russell 2000 Index has a three-year standard deviation of almost 15 percent compared to 10.3 percent on the S&P 500. Exchange-traded funds dedicated to the low volatility factor can help...

The two primary avenues of shareholder rewards are buybacks and dividends. Plenty of exchange-traded funds focus on dividends while a handful of others are dedicated to share buybacks and/or net reductions in shares outstanding. Some ETFs offer investors leverage to both themes and do so in a...

Investors that are tempted by the recent rally in U.S. small-cap stocks but have some reservations about that rally can consider dividend strategies to help smooth some of the volatility associated with smaller stocks. The WisdomTree U.S. SmallCap Dividend Fund (NYSE: DES) is one of the dominant...

As has been widely documented, an interesting phenomenon with small-cap stocks this year is not just the smaller U.S. stocks lagging their large-cap counterparts, but that U.S. small-caps are getting trounced by their international equivalents. Just focusing on ex-U.S. developed market small-caps,...

One of the most vexing scenarios facing investors this year has been the ongoing disappointment delivered by U.S. small-caps and the corresponding exchange-traded funds. For instance, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSE: IWM) is up just 2.3 percent year to date, well behind the 10.5 percent returned...

Nearly halfway through 2017, it is abundantly clear that U.S. small caps are one of this year's most disappointing asset classes. The Russell 2000 Index and the S&P SmallCap 600 Index have an average year-to-date gain of just over 2 percent, meaning they are, on average, being outpaced by...

A concern many investors have when mulling small-cap stocks or related exchange-traded funds is the often high valuations that come with the growth opportunity offered by smaller stocks. Finding value with small-caps has proven potent over time. In fact, long-term data suggest small-cap value funds...

After several years of lagging their large-cap counterparts, smaller stocks broke out last year to offer significant out-performance of their larger rivals. For example, the Russell 2000 and the S&P SmallCap 600 Index returned 21.6 percent and 26.6 percent, respectively, in 2016 compared to a...

The value factor made its presence felt last year, prompting investors to put billions of dollars of new capital to work with large-cap value exchange-traded funds, but investors do not need to limit their affinity for value stocks to large-cap names. Historical data suggest longer-term investors...

Small-cap stocks have been getting plenty of press lately, due in large part to some stellar post-election showings. Many investors and the financial media often focus on the Russell 2000 Index, which to be fair, is one of the most widely followed gauges of smaller stocks in the world. And to be...

Since Election Day, small-cap stocks and exchange-traded funds have been enjoying a blistering pace, but that rally is eliciting concern among some market observers. For example, the iShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF) (NYSE: IWM) is up 13.3 percent over the past month, but there are signs some of the...

Emerging markets stocks and exchange-traded funds are back in style this year, but some ETFs tracking developing economies are going unnoticed. That is particularly true of emerging markets small-cap ETFs. Perhaps the reason for that is investors often associate smaller stocks with volatility and...

There is a slew of data points suggesting that active management has some, to put it delicately, shortcomings. Those issues are particularly acute when drifting away from large caps to mid and small caps. “The March 2016 persistence scorecard, published last week, showed that just 19 percent...

The Russell 2000 and the S&P SmallCap 600 Indexes are the benchmarks of benchmarks when it comes to smaller U.S. stocks. There are plenty of exchange-traded funds linked to those indexes, but for the purposes of this piece, we'll use the iShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF) (NYSE: IWM), the...