# Did You Miss the Small Cap Rally? What the First Half of 2026 Taught Every Investor (SB1867)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-stacking-benjamins-show-745268/did-you-miss-the-small-cap-rally-what-the-first-half-of-2026-taught-every-investor-sb1867
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-stacking-benjamins-show-745268/did-you-miss-the-small-cap-rally-what-the-first-half-of-2026-taught-every-investor-sb1867.md
Podcast: [The Stacking Benjamins Show](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-stacking-benjamins-show-745268)
Published: 2026-07-13T08:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/345/rss.art19.com/episodes/f7cea5bf-955c-4750-84f4-a4b1ad817837.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/345/rss.art19.com/episodes/f7cea5bf-955c-4750-84f4-a4b1ad817837.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0
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Duration seconds: 3597

## Resource

Small company stocks were up nearly 22% in the first six months of 2026. Emerging markets were up 24%. Meanwhile, plenty of people sat on the sidelines convinced those asset classes were dead, chased last year's winners, or just didn't know what they owned. Joe, OG, and Len Penzo break down the first-half scorecard, explain why the lesson isn't about timing -- it's about diversification -- and walk through what an investment policy statement actually is and why having one would have kept most people out of trouble. What You'll Walk Away With The first-half 2026 scorecard: Russell 2000 up 21.9%, MSCI Emerging Markets up 24%, S&P 500 up 9.6%, and why the breadth of the rally matters more than the headline number Why OG's one-sentence takeaway -- "the plan always works" -- is both right and incomplete, and what Len's personal experience this year adds to the conversation What an investment policy statement actually is: the one-page written decision tree that protects you from making bad moves when markets spike or crash Why the market closes at an all-time high roughly 30% of the time -- and what that means for the "I'm waiting for it to come down" crowd How to x-ray your portfolio: the specific inventory OG recommends taking before you make any changes Why you should rebalance all at once rather than filling in holes slowly -- and the one asterisk that applies before you do anything in a taxable account Len on the mining sector: why GDX returned 154% last year and is down 10% this year -- and exactly what that pattern teaches about chasing returns Why trying to explain your investment plan to another human being is the best stress test you have The allowance micro-economy problem: what happens when you pay kids per task and they start pricing everything in units of d…

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## Transcript

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