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Small-cap stocks can be incredibly lucrative investments because their lack of analyst coverage leads to frequent mispricings. However, these businesses (and their stock prices) often stay small because their subscale operations make it harder to expand their competitive moats.

Many small-cap stocks have limited Wall Street coverage, giving savvy investors the chance to act before everyone else catches on. But the flip side is that these businesses have increased downside risk because they lack the scale and staying power of their larger competitors.

The Russell 2000 is home to many small-cap stocks, offering investors the chance to uncover hidden gems before the broader market catches on. However, these companies often come with higher volatility and risk, as their smaller size makes them more vulnerable to economic downturns.

Healthcare companies are pushing the status quo by innovating in areas like drug development and digital health. Despite the rosy long-term prospects, short-term headwinds such as COVID inventory destocking have harmed the industry’s returns - over the past six months, healthcare stocks have collectively shed 9.5%. This drop was worse than the S&P 500’s 2.3% loss.

Business services providers use their specialized expertise to help enterprises streamline operations and cut costs. But increasing competition from AI-driven upstarts has tempered enthusiasm, and over the past six months, the industry has pulled back by 3.7%. This performance was similar to the S&P 500’s decline.

Restaurants increase convenience and give many people a place to unwind. Still, their demand can ebb and flow with the broader economy because consumers can always cook meals at home when times are tough, and the market seems to be baking in a downturn for the industry - over the past six months, it has pulled back by 6.6%. This performance was worse than the S&P 500’s 2.3% fall.

Cloud-based financial software provider nCino's stock tumbled more than 30% in premarket trading Wednesday, a day after the company reported a larger net loss than analysts had expected and issued a soft outlook.