There is a reason I have part of my portfolio invested in small companies. Many reasons, actually, and I'll share a few of them with you.
Some are obvious. Intuitively, we know that if we're going to be fortunate enough to achieve Wal-Mart-type
But let's consider some less obvious reasons why we should all try to "think small."
Wrong price tag
Let's look at two companies -- semiconductor giant Intel
A total of 39 analysts cover Intel, and thousands of experts dissect its every move in news stories, Internet blogs, and discussion boards. The Motley Fool's Intel discussion folder contains more than 50,000 posts, offering some of the best analysis anywhere. Though its business is somewhat complicated, you'll find Intel experts on every street corner. Its stock, which trades about 70 million shares per day, may very well be over- or undervalued. But it's also fair to say that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of fairly valued. Or at least in the same city.
By contrast, Middleby draws exactly three analysts. Weeks can pass before a news story about it crosses the wire. Very, very few people outside the company have a thorough understanding of the business. What are the chances that its stock price is correctly valued? It's possible, but the price also could be so far from fair that it's not even in the same country.
When Tom Gardner first recommended Middleby for his Motley Fool Hidden Gems newsletter in November 2003, he thought the market was severely mispricing the stock by not recognizing the value of the company after CEO Selim Bassoul streamlined the business to focus solely on ovens. Tom was right, and the stock price has nearly quadrupled since.
Be the cream
Another reason to like small caps dovetails nicely with the point above. We've seen why small companies are more likely to be mispriced than large ones are. But mispricing goes in both directions, and that means a small-cap stock could be wildly undervalued or overvalued. You need to be able to separate the winners from the losers.
Because fewer analysts, institutions, and individual investors follow small companies, you're more likely to benefit from the knowledge that comes from solid, detailed research. After all, every stock transaction involves a buyer and seller. The person most likely to benefit is the one most knowledgeable about the company! With fewer brilliant minds looking at these companies -- Warren Buffett can't buy small caps -- you can be the cream that rises to the top.
Favorable research
Finally, there is solid evidence that, as a group, small caps tend to outperform large caps. In his book Investment Fables, Prof. Aswath Damodaran pulls together research pertaining to various investing strategies. Using data from Gene Fama and Ken French, Damodaran found that smaller stocks earned higher average annual returns than larger stocks of equivalent risk for the period 1927-2001. When comparing the smallest subset of stocks to the largest, the difference is considerable: 20% versus 11.74% on a value-weighted basis, with an even greater difference on an equally weighted basis.
Of course, there were many periods when large caps outperformed small caps, as there will be in the future. But on average, small caps offer higher returns.
In sum
So, those are some of the reasons I seek out small caps for a portion of my portfolio -- and why you should consider doing so also. Unless you're an expert and have faith in what you're doing, they should not dominate your portfolio. They do carry more downside risk than do stable, blue-chip companies. But reserving 10% to 20% of a well-rounded portfolio for these small guys can certainly pay off in the long term.
If you're interested in learning more about small caps, consider a free trial to Hidden Gems. Tom has achieved 21% average returns for his recommendations since the newsletter's inception, compared with 6% for like amounts invested in the S&P 500. Try it for free for 30 days. If it's not to your liking, it won't cost you a dime.
This article was originally published as "Why This Strategy Wins" on Feb. 25, 2005. It has been updated.
Rex Moore is no relation to Rex Kwan Do in Napoleon Dynamite. He owns no stocks mentioned in this story (Rex Moore, that is). The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors.
