Keerthi Sanagasetti BL Research Bureau | Updated on April 03, 2021 × 12% chance of one becoming big in 10 years; 55% don’t beat Sensex’s 9.8% CAGR Rookie and so called high-risk investors often buy small-cap stocks, betting on their potential to become tomorrow’s large caps. But there is only a small possibility of this happening, going by their performance in the last decade. A check of the top 250 small-cap stocks by market capitalisation as on March 31, 2011 shows that in the last ten years, only three have moved to the large-cap bucket. That is, barely a 1 per cent chance! Not just that, many small-caps also lost the battle in terms of alpha generation — the very reason that one invests in these stocks. The returns (CAGR) generated by half the small-cap companies could not beat the Sensex’s 10 per cent returns (CAGR) in the last ten years.