Tech has fueled large-cap stocks this year. It hasn’t boosted struggling small caps.

“There’s quite a bit of disparity in sector performance among large caps,” said Bespoke Investment Group analysts in an emailed note Wednesday. “In the small-cap space, performance is more uniform, but unfortunately, it’s to the downside.”

Small-cap stocks in the U.S., as measured by the S&P Small Cap 600
SML,
are down 3% in 2024 through Wednesday, FactSet data show.

“Sectors where there has been the largest disparity in favor of large caps are communications services and technology,” said Bespoke, adding that “these are also the two sectors that have the largest concentration of mega-caps.”

While large-cap stocks are broadly beating small caps in the U.S. this year, two exceptions at the sector level are in real estate and materials, the chart above shows. Both areas are down for the S&P 500 and S&P Small Cap 600, but the year-to-date declines are smaller for small caps.

Meanwhile, the energy, communication-services and tech sectors led the S&P 500 higher on Wednesday, with the index closing at its fourth straight record high, FactSet data show.

Shares of Netflix Inc.
NFLX,
-1.10%,
which is part of the S&P 500’s communication-services sector, surged on Wednesday after the video-streaming company released its latest quarterly results after market close on Tuesday.  Netflix was the S&P 500’s top-performing stock on Wednesday, with a gain of 10.7%, FactSet data show.

Additionally, companies in a small group of megacap stocks known as Big Tech, which span the tech, communication-services and consumer-discretionary sectors, have propelled the S&P 500’s rise this year.

Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+2.23%,
the sole company among the seven Big Tech stocks that is down so far in 2024, released its latest quarterly earnings results after the closing bell Wednesday.

As for the other Big Tech stocks, shares of Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-1.60%
and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
-1.02%
have soared this year, while Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-0.04%,
Google parent Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
+0.33%

GOOGL,
+0.29%,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
-0.68%
and Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+0.86%
have also posted gains this year to date, according to FactSet data, at last check. 

Read: These 3 stock-market sectors were only winners in S&P 500’s 2-year trip back to record high

Major U.S. stock indexes finished mostly higher Wednesday, with the S&P 500 up 0.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
down 0.3% and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite
COMP
advancing 0.4%, according to FactSet data.

Small-cap stocks in the U.S. slipped, meanwhile, with the S&P Small Cap 600 and Russell 2000
RUT
each falling 0.7% on Wednesday, FactSet data show.