Does Company Size Bias in ESG Scores Impact Small Cap Investors?

The Bailard Technology Strategy posted a 1Q25 total return of -9.35% net of fees—ahead of both the benchmark index (S&P North American Technology Index) and the competitor-comprised benchmarks. The Morningstar U.S. Open End Technology Category returned -9.98% and the Lipper Science and Technology Fund Index returned -10.88%, while the S&P North American Technology Index returned -11.43%. Over longer time periods of 3, 5, and 10 years, the Strategy’s net returns continued to lead the competitor’s peer benchmarks—quite substantially, as seen in the table to the right.

Despite market volatility in Q1, we have not significantly altered our positioning. Our view is that nothing is broken in tech, and we remain convicted in our investment process. With prices and valuation changing dramatically, we expect to optimize our positioning by bolstering or adding high-quality companies trading at attractive discounts to long-term value. We anticipate stabilization in industry fundamentals and fiscal policy in the latter part of this year.

Policy uncertainty, mixed economic and inflation numbers, and a declining stock market prompted investors to opt for the perceived safety of large cap stocks in the first quarter. Though trade wars disproportionally hurt larger cap stocks due to their much greater international exposure, and the new administration’s proposed deregulatory initiatives relatively help smaller companies, fear of recession eclipsed any other rational analysis during the period. As a result, small cap stocks now appear to be discounting a severe recession based upon price declines, while large cap stocks are barely discounting a mild one.