Demand Slack for Small Caps

Shares of small-sized companies lagged behind large caps in the last Iranian trading week that ended on Wednesday. 
Emerging as big winners for several weeks, small caps have lost traction and gone through a correction phase. The equal-weighted index of Tehran Stock Exchange gained less than 1% during the week. 
This is while the TEDPIX, the TSE’s market cap-weighted benchmark gained close to 2% in the week thanks to the better performance of commodity shares. 
The TEDPIX on Tuesday broke past the strong resistance level of 1.6 million points, the level it was 20 months ago. It shed 11,046.23 points a session later and retreated to 1,594,977. 
Overall retail trade increased 20% on the earlier week. Average daily trade rose from 65.39 trillion rials ($217 million) per day a preceding week to 74.86 trillion rials ($250 m) last week.  
Market observers see the increase in trade as a good omen for the bourse, noting that the struggling market should pick up with the increase in participation of retail investors. 
Market data show the number of sessions the market witnessed retail trade above 50 trillion rials was less than 10 during the whole of last fiscal year (March 2021-22).
Despite the rise in some key indicators, the share market saw outflow of liquidity by retail investors last week. Net capital outflow by retail traders was 5.57 trillion rials ($18m), ten times higher than the week before.