A Smart Way to Play Small-Caps

This is the heyday of the has-been, the moment in the economic cycle when third-rate stocks in fourth-rate industries get a second chance at romance. Just as the list of shares making new one-year lows reads like the NYSE's who's who, the list of new highs looks like the roster for a bowling league in Bakersfield.

Rather than mope about this turn of events, American investors should throw their hats in the air and cheer. What has happened to our love of underdogs? Our appreciation for the disabled kid from a broken home who beats the preppies at the national spelling bee? Our admiration for the spunky young Diamondbacks knocking off the venerated Yankees?

When it comes to almost every other activity in this land, we root on the side of the disadvantaged. But when it comes to stocks, most investors tend to go old school. In that sense, the continuing bear market for blue-chip stocks could have a salutary effect: pushing more people to take on the risk of funding innovation at thousands of smaller firms that need and deserve their funds more. ...