Small-cap stocks tend to outperform their larger brethren over time. Coming out of the pandemic, the Russell 2000 small-cap index was handily beating the barometer of the 500 largest stocks on the market. However, after government spending caused inflation to rise to its highest levels in 40 years, the Federal Reserve enacted an unprecedented series of 11 hikes in interest rates. Between March 2022 and July 2023, the Fed Funds rate rose from 0% to between 5.25% and 5.50%, where it stands today. The effect w ...