Small cap shares may be on the cusp of a turnaround.
According to Fairlead Strategies market technician Katie Stockton, the Russell 2000‘s underperformance up to now this yr is probably going a near-term setback.
“We’re sort of satisfied that we’ll see small caps do higher. Maybe they do not outperform strongly. But a higher yr for them after what was a very troublesome yr for them as a result of breadth was so weak, ” the agency’s founder and managing accomplice informed CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Wednesday.
So far this yr, the Russell 2000 is off two p.c. Meanwhile, the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq 100 have hit new all-time highs.
Stockton believes the Russell 2000’s decline has shaken buyers’ confidence in small caps.
‘Short-term oversold situation’
“We wish to kind of re-instill that confidence as a result of we have seen an preliminary response to a short-term oversold situation — that is IWM or the Russell 2000 ETF,” she mentioned. “With that, we’ve enchancment in relative efficiency: Long-term draw back momentum versus the S&P 500 has improved.”
The Russell 2000 is coming off a robust fourth quarter. It rallied by virtually 14% in that interval.
“For IWM, we noticed a fairly main buying and selling vary breakout in This fall,” Stockton mentioned. “It’s one thing that we had anticipated as a result of there have been some constructive divergences in momentum because it had gone sideways with a ton of volatility.”
CNBC’s Anna Gleason contributed to this text.