The Forgotten Breakout

While large-caps stall, the micro-cap ETF quietly pushes through 4-year resistance to all time highs.

Every cycle crowns a new set of winners. Right now, the podium is crowded with miners, materials, and commodity plays—the exact corners of the market we’ve been pressing in our reflation framework. That’s the through-line in our scan and the reason our book is outperforming the broad market by ~5x: we’re long the things that go up when the world gets nominal again.

What the Scan Is Saying (Loudly)

Look at the AAO Macro Trendfinder – 6M Winners/Losers table. The left column is basically a who’s-who of real-asset torque:

• Nuclear/Uranium: OKLO, LEU, SMR, URA, CCJ

• Coal & Steel Proxies: METC, BTU

• Copper/Metals & Rare Earths: IE, MP, IPX, LYSDY, HBM, EMX, HL

• Lithium & Battery Chain: SLI, TMC

• Crypto beta / liquidity tells: WGMI, ETHA, BITQ

That concentration isn’t random. It’s reflation. These names benefit when nominal growth accelerates, supply chains tighten, capex returns, and investors re-price cash flows tied to hard assets.

Now scan the right column (laggards): defensive health insurers (UNH), consumer staples (PG, KO, PSCC), waste haulers (WM, RSG), low-vol compounders/insurance (AJG), logistics/bellwethers (ODFL, KEX, MATX), even a mega-conglomerate proxy (BRK.B). In a rising-nominal environment, that set tends to underperform—they’re duration-heavy, defensively owned, and less levered to price.

Bottom line: the winners cluster in materials, miners, and commodity ecosystems—the very trades we categorized as reflation months ago.

The Uncle Story (and the Lesson)

At the end of the ’90s, my uncle dumped his tech darlings and rotated into miners, commodities, and something I’d barely heard of then—micro caps. I couldn’t figure out why you’d sell what made you rich to buy dusty producers.