Morgan Stanley: Worst Beta-adjusted Period for Small-cap Stocks Since the Late 1990s

I know what you're thinking but don't. These kinds of trends take a while to play out and there's no need to be early. If you miss the first few points of a turn, so what?
From SafeHaven:

Patiently Waiting for Mean Reversion

So far this year, small-cap growth stocks have surprisingly been lackluster. After 2013, when it gained a scorching 38.8 percent, the Russell 2000 has delivered a tepid 0.62 percent year-to-date (YTD).

Performance has been so poor, in fact, that the spread, or bifurcation, between the 12-month return residuals of small and large caps is at its widest since the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s. This bifurcation is one of the largest since 1975.

According to Morgan Stanley, we're in the worst beta-adjusted period for small-cap stocks since the late 1990s. The 12-month return in August for small-caps was -9.7 percent, placing it in the bottom 6 percent of any 12-month period since the mid-1970s.

The bifurcation is more than apparent when you compare the year-to-date (YTD) total returns of the big boys (those in the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average) to their little brothers (those in the Russell 2000 and S&P SmallCap 600 Index). The Russell, though it led the other indices in March, has failed to reach a new record high, which the S&P 500 and Dow managed to achieve in the last couple of months....MUCH MORE