SMIDs
If You Like TINA, You Should Love “SAMARA!”
Equity investors have had a multi-year love affair with TINA—the belief that “There Is No Alternative” to stocks in a world of ridiculously-low interest rates. This TINA romance has carried on so long that the S&P 500 is nearing valuations last seen in the Tech bubble’s final inning. If the fling with TINA has become prohibitively expensive, we’d like to introduce “SAMARA.”
Just A “Small” Beginning...
Knee-jerk contrarians are already claiming the stampede in Small Cap stocks is “too consensus” to continue in the near term. We couldn’t disagree more. In fact, we are very confident that a new multi-year Small Cap leadership cycle has kicked off.
S&P 500 Dividends? Thank You, No!
Dividends are a cornerstone of equity investing and over the decades they have produced a significant portion of the stock market’s total return. Previous Leuthold research has identified a strong dividend influence on total returns for small and midcap companies. Looking at S&P 500 constituents, we see that dividend growers outperformed companies that had flat or declining dividends – an expected outcome. However, we also found that companies not paying dividends convincingly outpaced dividend payers. This is contrary to the results in other market segments, but the explanation for this becomes apparent in the course of our research.
The Valuation Case For “SMIDs”
Mid and Small Cap stocks underperformed in 2018 and 2019. However, after the collapse of February and March, these “SMID” Caps have largely kept pace with the torrid rebound in the blue chips. Today’s valuations are priming the SMIDs for a similar “decoupling” in the years ahead, like that following Y2K.
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