This makes no sense when comparing with real world data. This would imply that overall growth in small caps is lower - because they "fall harder" and rise "not by much". But since 1 Mar 2019 to today, NSE small cap 100 has risen 2.25 times, whereas nifty 50 has risen 2.07 times.
I've seen many other periods, small caps have typically outperformed nifty significantly in any period that includes a few ups and downs - say 5 years or above.
From what i have read a decade ago, midcaps overall, over long term, do better with lower risk. You probably need a certain size to improve odds of survival.
This small cap mania in last few years was a bit unique perhaps, dunno.
There is no reason to believe that the smallest companies would do better overall that larger ones. They will have harder to compete sometimes against larger players ( but can grow fast if things work out)
Look at us markets, Russell hasn't been doing that good vs larger indices.
Markets get different mania/fear from time to time and then later they forget about it. Few years back, it was quality, psu was a big no. Value wasn't doing well.
In 2000s it was infra and similar which got over after 2008.
Before covid fall, small/midcaps had struggled for many years and large caps did better. Value struggled.
Here just some random article about them from 2019.
If you had made a lumpsum investment of Rs 1 lakh in Sensex on Jan 1, 2010, you would have collected Rs 2.33 lakh by now
www.businesstoday.in
i think small caps was a similar phase and its probably over now and will revert to mean. People went batshit crazy chasing the smallest companies, going after sme ipos and what not. Pura pp water balls type herd thinking.
In my experience, once this happens and things reverse, it isn't easy for that theme anymore.
But no one can know for sure, maybe there is more steam in small cap bull market who knows.