Why investors have fallen in love with small American firms
The Russell 2000 puts in a historic performance
![Illustration of a hand with the index finger pointing up, wearing a small red baseball cap on the tip of the finger, set against a pink background.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240720_FND002.jpg)
Believe it or not, corporate America still makes room for the little guy. Around half of working Americans are employed by a firm with less than 500 workers. Nine in ten banks are community institutions that hold less than $10bn in assets. This rather parochial picture, however, is not reflected in the country’s stockmarket, where the falling number of public companies and extreme concentration of value are a concern. Among America’s 3,000 largest public firms, the biggest 1,000 account for 95% of total value. The next 2,000, which form the Russell 2000 index, are collectively worth less than Apple, the world’s most valuable company.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Cap and trade”
Finance & economics July 20th 2024
- Stocks are on an astonishing run. Yet threats lurk
- Why investors have fallen in love with small American firms
- At last, Wall Street has something to cheer
- Japan’s strength produces a weak yen
- China’s leaders face miserable economic-growth figures
- YIMBY cities show how to build homes and contain rents
- Americans are wrong to wish for an era of stable bipartisanship
More from Finance & economics
![Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP002.jpg)
Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral
Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries
![People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP502.jpg)
Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?
In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time
![illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FND001.jpg)
Why you should repay your mortgage early
For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans
How AI will divide the best from the rest
Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides
The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research
Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful
Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending
DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit