The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Forterra, Barrett Business, Chuy's, Akorn And Quanex

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL –November 12, 2019 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Forterra Inc. (NASDAQ:FRTA) , Barrett Business Services Inc. (NASDAQ:BBSI) , Chuy's Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:CHUY) , Akorn Inc. (NASDAQ:AKRX) and Quanex Building Products Corp. (NYSE:NX) .

Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

5 Small-Cap Stocks Outpacing the Broader Market

Wall Street is maintaining its dream run in 2019 wherein three major stock indexes have already set fresh all-time highs in November. These indexes predominantly consist of large-cap stocks. The small-cap-centric Russell 2000 Index is still lagging its large-cap peers.

The stock market’s impressive bull run is likely to continue in the near term supported by a dovish Fed, which already cut the benchmark rate by 75 basis points, expectation of a partial trade deal between the United States and China this year and a firmly north-bound government bond yield curve reversing the inversion in August.

These positives strengthened investors’ confidence in risky assets like equities, especially the cyclical large-cap growth stocks. Despite the slow pace of movement of small-cap stock prices, a few stocks within this stable (market capital

Russell 2000 Lags Large-Cap Peers

Year to date, the three major stock indexes of Wall Street, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite have rallied 18.7%, 23.4% and 27.7%, respectively. All three indexes have set new all-time highs in November, surpassing their previous highs posted in July.

For the week ended Nov 8, the Dow completed the winning streak of three-straight weeks, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite finished in positive territory for the fifth and sixth consecutive week, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Russel 2000 has gained 17.9% so far in 2019. More importantly, the index is still 5.4% away from its all-time high recorded on Aug 31, 2018. This indicates that the small-cap-centric index has failed to achieve a new high so far this year, while its large-cap peers have established new highs several times in 2019.

Why Small Business Is Important

Small corporates create a significant number of jobs in the U.S. economy. More than 50% of the newly created jobs in the private sector originate from this space. These people constitute a large part of customers of big businesses.

Moreover, small companies are a major part of the supply chain management systems of large companies for innovative and technologically superior inputs. Additionally, small businesses often end up being an important part of corporate America's customer base.

Owing to their predominantly domestic-focused business strategy, small-cap stocks are generally immune to the movement of the U.S. dollar. A strong U.S. dollar will make exports of large companies uncompetitive. However, small-cap stocks primarily remain unaffected by foreign exchange volatility.

Our Top Picks

Although Russell 2000 is behind its large-cap peers in 2019, several small-cap stocks have popped. However, selection from these stocks may be difficult. In this scenario, our Zacks Investment Research

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Written By: Zacks Investment Research