Small caps best since the Nov election. Why?

[NW-Bound]

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It is NOT random, it is psychological behavior of humans.
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This is not "efficient market" behavior. It is behavior based on speculation, rumors, pumping of stocks in Twitter and on Discord servers. It is a market of emotion.

Well, human behavior, particularly that of crowd, can be random too, and hard to predict. You cannot tell when a herd starts to stampede.

But while there's crazy stuff going on with Redditors, I believe there's sector rotation, where investors start to pick up neglected stocks and to take profits from the FAANG stocks and large cap stocks. This is healthy in my view, and of course having no FAANG stocks, I welcome this move.

 

[Markola]

Wow, I literally had not noticed until this thread that my extended market index fund is up 108% since April 1, when it started steadily rebounding. Half of that growth happened prior to the election and half afterward, so I see no correlation at all to Nov. 3rd.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Wow, I literally had not noticed until this thread that my extended market index fund is up 108% since April 1, when it started steadily rebounding. Half of that growth happened prior to the election and half afterward, so I see no correlation at all to Nov. 3rd.

You should be comparing its performance against large cap or FAANG or even total market. That is, what is doing relatively better and relatively worse. If all one wants to do is map to the overall market, BUY THE OVERALL MARKET.

But here in "Stock Picking and Market Strategy" land of the ER.org misfits (because we aren't just "buy the passive index tracking fund and get on with your life"), we should want to know/go for relative outperformance, either via sector/stock picking or (shudder) market timing activities.

 

[Lsbcal]

You should be comparing its performance against large cap or FAANG or even total market. That is, what is doing relatively better and relatively worse. If all one wants to do is map to the overall market, BUY THE OVERALL MARKET.

But here in "Stock Picking and Market Strategy" land of the ER.org misfits (because we aren't just "buy the passive index tracking fund and get on with your life"), we should want to know/go for relative outperformance, either via sector/stock picking or (shudder) market timing activities.

Hmmm...I am in some sympathy with your comments. But really what is the profile for a model portfolio? If you are steeped in Boglehead thinking you would have one answer ... well maybe many answers around a general theme. If you are a Wall Street type you would have different answers. OK, I know you were kidding about "misfits" but I just want to make the point that there is no neutral standard portfolio model for US investors. Looking for agreement is fruitless.

FWIW, I just like to make my portfolio perform well and if I can beat the market great. In crass terms it's all about making lots of $'s.

Now I will step off my soapbox.

 

[Markola]

You should be comparing its performance against large cap or FAANG or even total market. That is, what is doing relatively better and relatively worse. If all one wants to do is map to the overall market, BUY THE OVERALL MARKET.



But here in "Stock Picking and Market Strategy" land of the ER.org misfits (because we aren't just "buy the passive index tracking fund and get on with your life"), we should want to know/go for relative outperformance, either via sector/stock picking or (shudder) market timing activities.

There are a lot of roads to Rome and YMMV but we aren’t personally in the stock picking/market timing camp. Rather, we are buy and hold types and have our equity allocation in 3 Vanguard index funds: Total U.S., Total International and a small allocation to Extended Market, which is what allowed me to compare the small cap outperformance of late. Good luck.

 

[explanade]

VSGAX didn't pay a dividend in Q1 2022, the first time I can remember it or any other fund not paying.

I've held it for about 10 years.

Anyone else notice or have held other funds which didn't pay a quarter here or there?

 

[Lsbcal]

I noticed that too just because I get data for the various asset class funds.