Small-cap stocks haven’t been this volatile in nearly a year. What it means for the long-suffering segment.

U.S. small-cap stocks looked ready to take off this year after a mostly lackluster 2023 — but volatility greeted investors over the past week, as uncertainty on when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates crept back on Wall Street after a mixed batch of January inflation data.  The small-cap benchmark Russell 2000 index RUT— which measures the performance of 2,000 small and midsized companies included in the Russell 3000 RUAindex — on Friday booked its seventh straigh