Mid Cap and Small Cap Stocks Performance

January 30, 2014 Mid Cap Small Cap 2 min read
Mid cap and Small cap stocks turns market favorite

Indian equity market witnessed divergent trend over last few years (2009-13). While the large cap stocks and market index such as Sensex and Nifty remained in positive territory most of the time, the mid cap and the small cap stocks found their place in negative territory. This has been against normal market phenomena wherein the frontline indices (Sensex/Nifty), the mid-cap index and the small-cap index move in similar direction, though their performance may differ during different periods. One apparent reason has been that investors preferred to reduce risk during this period and focused on companies with stronger cash flows and stale businesses, instead of companies with high capex requirement and shaky business model.

However, large cap stocks and frontline index stocks gradually became over-owned by investors; valuation of these stocks became expensive and moved beyond investor’s comfort zone. This paved the way for turnaround in the mid cap and small cap stocks. Starting October 2013, the mid cap and the small cap stocks staged a strong turnaround as investors started looking beyond large cap stocks and frontline index stocks.

Trade Smart Online Blog Banner

Chart 1: Performance comparison (Large Cap Vs Mid Cap Vs Small Cap)

large cap vs mid cap vs small cap

As investors move beyond the large cap stocks, they will fish for stronger companies in sectors wherein the business cycle is bottoming out or has already bottomed out. From valuation perspective too, investors are finding the mid cap and the small cap stocks relatively attractive.

Chart 2: 2014 Year to Date (YTD) performance of large cap, mid cap and small cap stocks

2014 Year to Date performance of large cap, mid cap and small cap stocks

 

Also Read : How returns from various asset classes are taxed?

Having said that, the small cap and the mid cap stocks are always the first one to bear investor’s wrath when market become volatile and investor sentiment turns bearish. We can see from Chart 2 that the small cap and mid cap stocks are once again underperforming the market on 2014 YTD basis. In India, attention will be centered on relatively more towards politics rather than economics till general election; investors will most probably keep their finger crossed. This calls for cautious and selective stock picking from the small cap and the mid cap space even though broader investment turns in favor of the mid cap and the small cap stocks.

Start Investing In Mid and Small Cap Stocks Now !

[email-subscribers namefield=”NO” desc=”Subscribe now to get latest updates!” group=”Public”]


3 Comments
  • Amit Chaturvedi says:

    Thoughtful overview !!
    According to Business Standard Journal, foreign institutional investors’ (FII) equity holdings in selected mid and small-sized companies rose as much as 8% points during the Oct-Dec’13 quarter. Of the 453 mid-cap and small-cap companies to declare their December quarter shareholding pattern so far, FIIs have increased their stake in nearly 42%, or 190 companies. In 101 companies, the holdings remain unchanged. In the remaining 162, they reduced stake during the quarter.
    The gush of liquidity has seen the mid-cap and small-cap indices outperform larger peers. Since October, the S&P BSE mid-and small-cap indices have rallied 15.7% and 18.5%, respectively, as compared to a modest 8.7% gain on the S&P BSE Sensex.
    But there is another view. It is expected that RBI is likely to raise the policy rate further in 2014, as inflation pressures remain. Given that, leverage rises quite dramatically from-large-caps to mid-caps, this hardly makes the case for investing in mid-caps compelling.
    On the other hand, FII holdings in mid-cap stocks have fallen consistently over the last few years. QE tapering by the Fed is also likely to have a bearing on capital flows into emerging markets and it is difficult to envisage excessive inflows into Indian equities in such an environment.
    Having said that, though their valuation gap with large-caps has widened, mid-caps lack material fundamental catalysts to stage a broad-based turnaround

  • Raj Malhotra says:

    Excellent. Hope to see more such thoughts.

  • Anupam Banerjee says:

    A great overview of the reason behind the performance of the share market based on the larger and small cap stocks. Very helpful article. Keep going…

Related

Open Demat Account With TradeSmart

Lowest Brokerage Ever Trade @15 Per Order
Download TradeSmart App Now

Scan below QR Code
to download App