Full record
HitmarketsSmall-cap stocks are among the market's leaders in the second half of 2025.
A scored prediction by Tom Lee, made on .
Scored prediction
Hitmarkets“So, we like the Mag 7, but we also like this financials, industrials, and small caps for the second half. ... I know it's been not a great call, but I think small caps are still a second half story.”
Small-cap stocks are among the market's leaders in the second half of 2025.
- Made on
- 2025-06-03
- Outcome
- Hit
- Importance
- 3 / 5
- Effect on score
- +2.27
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2025-12-31
Operationalized before evidence: 'small caps are still a second half story' resolves TRUE if the Russell 2000 total return from 2025-06-30 through 2025-12-31 exceeds the S&P 500 total return over the identical window. Resolves FALSE if the Russell 2000 matches or lags the S&P 500 over that window.
The pre-registered criterion is a clean head-to-head: Russell 2000 total return versus S&P 500 total return, 2025-06-30 through 2025-12-31. The Russell 2000 outperformed on every basis tested - total-return indices (+14.86% vs +11.00%), dividend-adjusted ETF proxies (+14.78% vs +11.00%), and raw price indices (+14.11% vs +10.32%). The margin (~3.8 points) is well outside any plausible data-vendor noise, and the three measurement bases agree in direction and size, so the result is not sensitive to the choice of proxy. Index identities were verified from the API metadata (^RUTTR = 'Russell 2000 Total Return', ^SP500TR = 'S&P 500 (TR)') rather than assumed from the ticker string. No conflicting evidence found. Note the criterion tests only relative return versus the S&P 500; it does not test the looser vernacular sense of 'among the market's leaders' against other sectors or indices - that operationalization was fixed before evidence was gathered and is applied as written.
Sources
Tom Lee: Melt-Up Rally Incoming?
Fundstrat (YouTube) ·
Evidence of what happened
Russell 2000 Total Return index (^RUTTR) daily closes: 11,844.80 on 2025-06-30 rising to 13,604.59 on 2025-12-31, a total return of +14.86% over the exact criterion window.
S&P 500 Total Return index (^SP500TR) daily closes over the identical window: 13,712.71 on 2025-06-30 rising to 15,220.45 on 2025-12-31, a total return of +11.00%. Russell 2000 total return therefore exceeded S&P 500 total return by 3.86 percentage points.
Independent cross-check using dividend-adjusted ETF closes over the same 2025-06-30 to 2025-12-31 window: IWM (iShares Russell 2000) +14.78% versus SPY (SPDR S&P 500) +11.00% - a 3.78 point spread, reproducing the index-level result to within 0.1 points.
Price-return (ex-dividend) cross-check on the raw indices over the same window: Russell 2000 (^RUT) 2,175.04 to 2,481.91 = +14.11%, versus S&P 500 (^GSPC) 6,204.95 to 6,845.50 = +10.32%. Spread of +3.79 points, same direction and magnitude as the total-return comparison.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Effect on the score
+2.27- How sure they sounded
- 65%
- Outcome
- Hit
- Importance
- 3 / 5
This page shows the scored prediction as published; the site doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Where this came from
Small-cap stocks are among the market's leaders in the seco…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- August 5, 2026
- Made on
- 2025-06-03
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources