Smallcap
Market basicsCompanies ranked 251 and below by market capitalisation.
In plain terms
Everything else, from future compounders to shells. Thin liquidity and brutal drawdowns.
1492 terms
Glossary
Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
Showing 8 terms
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Fund categories
Market basicsThe scheme categories SEBI mandates, each specifying what a fund must hold — largecap, midcap, smallcap, flexicap, multicap, ELSS, hybrid and index among them.
In plain terms
The label is a legal constraint on holdings, not marketing, which is what makes thousands of schemes comparable. It also fixes the only valid comparison: same category, against the fund's own declared benchmark.
Multicap
Market basicsA SEBI fund category required to hold at least 25% each in largecap, midcap and smallcap stocks.
In plain terms
Forced diversification across sizes. The manager is legally unable to retreat into largecaps during a smallcap crash — which is the whole difference from a flexicap.
Auction settlement
Trading & ordersAlso called: Auction market
The process by which the exchange sources undelivered shares through a separate auction session, in which other members offer the shortfall quantity for delivery to the original buyer.
In plain terms
An afternoon window on the settlement day, and you cannot bid in it — only members can. Whether anyone happens to offer your thin smallcap in that window is what decides between a modest loss and a close-out.
AUM
Market basicsAlso called: Assets under management
Assets Under Management — the total money a fund or manager runs.
In plain terms
A very large smallcap fund cannot buy small companies meaningfully. Size constrains strategy.
Flexicap
Market basicsA fund category required to hold at least 65% in equity with no constraint on market cap, leaving the mix to the manager's discretion.
In plain terms
The one people confuse with multicap. A flexicap manager can sit 90% in largecaps when nervous, so in a smallcap crash two funds with almost identical names behave nothing alike.
Recency bias
Risk & psychologyOver-weighting recent events when estimating future probabilities.
In plain terms
Why retail money flows into smallcaps after two good years, which is structurally the worst time.
Risk-on
Technical analysisAlso called: Risk-off
A market environment in which participants favour riskier assets.
In plain terms
Smallcaps and high-multiple names lead. When it flips to risk-off, they lead downward.