Adding microcap to your portfolio?

[maddythebeagle]

DFSCX: Summary for DFA U.S. MICRO CAP PORTF - Yahoo! Finance

I think this came up once before but was looking at my options today and wondering if folks had microcap in their portfolio to add a little extra volatility It does appear to be down right now...

[jIMOh]

I am in midst of adding micro cap. Looking at Bridgeway family of funds in particular.

I need to wait for my old 401k to rollover to current 401k, then I am using a self directed brokerage to invest in some more aggressive mutual funds which include microcaps. My 401k represents about 25% of my overall portfolio.

It will be allocated similar to this:

30% large cap (core)
15% aggressive large cap (concentrated position)
10% mid cap (core)
5% aggressive mid cap
10% small cap (core)
5% micro cap (aggressive)
25% diversified international

International is diversified because I have not found any aggressive global funds which intrigued me. I might do 20% core and 5% aggressive or 15%-5%-5% if I find two international/global funds with an aggressive edge to them.

[Animorph]

I have wamvx, waiox, and ryotx for micro-cap. I haven't had them in significant enough amounts and for long enough to see the effects on the portfolio. They're 10% of my current portfolio.

Dan

[Sarah in SC]

I have Mainstay Small Cap Opportunity in my 401k and put a small bit that way each month. Am also thinking about asking for the Satuit microcap to be added to our choices, but I may wait till a bit further along in the year.

[slazenger]

I would if i could figure out a way to find out/research about IPOs or recently released stocks/companies going public in the two sectors I'm very familiar with. I'd love to toss $500 or so at individual small stocks that sounded promising then put them in a notebook, set it and forget it.

[clifp]

Originally Posted by slazenger

I would if i could figure out a way to find out/research about IPOs or recently released stocks/companies going public in the two sectors I'm very familiar with. I'd love to toss $500 or so at individual small stocks that sounded promising then put them in a notebook, set it and forget it.

American Association of Independent investors AAII.com has a shadow stock portfolio which is essential a screen for profitable microcaps stocks that are selling for less than there book value. Allegedly the long (15+ year) performance of the portfolio is quite good.

I tried following it for a while, but it is remarkably hard to establish even a small $3-5,000 position in a stock worth under $100 million. There are number of great research tools on the web. I use Morningstar. At the end of the day you do need to read the SEC filing for most of the companies. This may be too much work for a $500 or even a $5,000 investment.

I ended up switching to RMT which is the close end equivalent of the Royce MicroCap fund ryotx.

[Buckeye]

I have DFSCX as part of my DFA portfolio.

[saluki9]

We have DFSCX in all but our most conservative portfolios.

[mb]

Originally Posted by slazenger

I would if i could figure out a way to find out/research about IPOs or recently released stocks/companies going public in the two sectors I'm very familiar with. I'd love to toss $500 or so at individual small stocks that sounded promising then put them in a notebook, set it and forget it.

My recollection is that as a sector IPOs underperform the overall market and only a small percentage of them do really well.