Being stuck in the middle may not be so bad for mid-cap stock exchange traded funds that have outperformed their larger counterparts and experienced less volatility than smaller companies.
“There’s a case to be made for midcap stocks to be in a sweet spot for investors,” Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF research at S&P Capital IQ, said in a MarketWatch report. [Mid-Cap ETFs: Stuck in the Middle is a Good Spot]
According to S&P, mid-cap companies in the S&P MidCap 400 Index are growing faster and carry less debt than large-cap S&P 500 stocks. Moreover, mid-caps have greater access to capital markets than small-caps.
Middle-capitalization companies are oriented toward the domestic economy and they don’t get much international sales exposure. As the U.S. economy recovered, mid-cap stock funds have gained about 20% so far this year, compared to 17.6% for large-caps and 22% for small-caps.