Mid-cap stocks could boost your portfolio

Article Excerpt

Mid-cap stocks, like middle children, don’t always get the attention they deserve. But, that has failed to hold back several top stocks in this overlooked category. What are mid-cap stocks? Mid-cap stocks fall between large-cap stocks and small-cap stocks, but their size varies from stock market to stock market. S&P ranks all U.S. listed stocks by market capitalization and then labels the top 500 as “large cap,” the next 400 as “mid cap” and the rest as “small cap.” Large-cap stocks typically are said to make up the top 70% of the market capitalization of stocks trading in any particular market, with mid-caps comprising the next 20%. Small caps contribute the balance of 10%. In the case of the U.S., mid-cap stocks generally have market capitalizations of between $4 billion and $16 billion. In the smaller Canadian market, mid-cap stocks generally have market caps between $2 billion and $10 billion. Why own mid-cap stocks? More opportunities: Of the universe of 2,862 publicly listed U.S. stocks, almost half…