Small Caps Fall Behind Dow by Most in 18 Months as Russell Lags

(Bloomberg) -- Amid all the talk of new highs and record levels, one section of the equity market is having trouble keeping up. Small-cap stocks, on track for their second weekly decline with a loss of 1.7 percent, are falling further behind benchmark equity gauges.

The S&P 500 is poised to end roughly flat and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on pace to beat small caps by around 3 percentage points this week, the biggest performance gap since February 2016.