Small-Cap Mutual Funds

Bigger Rewards from Small Caps

Traditionally, small-cap mutual funds and ETFs would not get much notice among those looking for dividends or income from their holdings. Instead, investors bought into this corner of the market for growth, more robust growth, while at the same time increasing riskiness.

However, an article at Fox Business says,

“The dividend growth strategy can also be applied to targeted small- and mid-cap asset categories, which may help investors gain exposure to the potential growth potential of smaller companies while mitigating some of the risk with a more conservative dividend play. Consequently, investors are able to focus on higher quality companies in these smaller capitalization segments without giving up on growth.”

In other words, finding reliable dividend payers among small caps and mid caps means finding small- and medium-sized companies that can offer growth with less than the usual risk. In some cases, that may mean enjoying the best of both worlds: income and growth together.

Still, we seem to be in early days when it comes to this development, but it would be worth staying aware of opportunities here.

Bond Fund Owners: What Effects Might Oil Prices Have on Your Holdings?

If you own mutual funds that hold or did hold oil and gas stocks, it won’t be any secret to you that the sector has taken a beating from the worldwide price plunge that began several years ago.

But, if you own bond funds, the oil price crash could affect you, even if you don’t have any funds with holdings in the energy sector. This from an article at MarketWatch,

“On paper, non-energy firms might be expected to benefit from lower energy costs. Think of companies that rely on transportation, where lower prices at the pump can be a boon.

“But another phenomenon upstaged the benefits of cheaper energy costs and it is tied to some interesting dynamics in the market.

““We find evidence of a liquidity spillover, whereby the bonds of more liquid non-energy firms had to be sold to satisfy investors who withdrew from bond funds in response to falling energy prices,” said Brandon Li, senior analyst in the New York Fed’s markets group, and Asani Sarkar, an assistant vice president in the bank’s research and statistics team.

“Selling those holdings potentially drove down prices and drove up yields (yield and price move inversely), widening spreads to lower-risk bonds.”

A word of caution, this news is worth noting, but should not drive any decisions to buy or sell bond funds. Review your original criteria for buying the funds you did, and stay with them until something changes in those criteria.