Small Caps Outperform as Russell 2000 Gains 1.4%

Smaller companies beat large caps on Friday. The Russell 2000 rose 1.4%, the S&P SmallCap 600 gained 1.33% and the S&P MidCap 400 advanced 1.03%.

Smaller companies tend to be more sensitive to borrowing costs, so the drop in Treasury yields helped sentiment. The 10-year yield fell to about 5.09% and the 30-year stood near 5.43%.

Brent crude eased 1.4% to about $104.54 a barrel, and the dollar index slipped to about 102. Individual small-cap moves were large in both directions, with Haemonetics up more than 17% and Applied Optoelectronics down nearly 14%.