While perusing the SmallCap Network site a bit ago, I stumbled on a few articles I think really sums up the entire equity landscape right now. I hate to poach, but it is our site -- and we do really think we have some pretty good talented professionals -- who not only know how to make things interesting, but who are also pretty good at predicting the markets' future, which in my very humble opinion is far more valuable than most everything else out there I tend to read. It's been quite some time, but small cap stocks are fast finding their way back into the spot light - not all of them, but many of them. And, it's a good thing because historically speaking, when small and micro-cap stocks lead they often lead the markets on to new all-time highs. From about 2011 through a good part of 2016, small cap stocks lagged that of the S&P 500. However, once Trump took office, the entire sector got a lift speculative investors hadn't seen in quite some time. As evidenced by the daily chart overlay of the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 Small Cap Index here, it doesn't take a master technician to see just how explosive the moves have been for small caps in recent months. Although they've clearly taken a breather of late, that November to December run should be a real prelude for things to come within the small cap stock sector. Chalk it up to Trump's favorable views on American small business, or his commitment to infrastructure growth, but one thing's for sure - the markets have finally found their appetite for small stocks again. This is clearly a strong positive fundamental development for small cap stocks, one that also continues to lend itself to some very positive technical implications as well. When we start looking under the hood of many of our favorite small cap stocks of late, the theme seems to be pretty consistent - big run-ups followed by pullbacks. However, it's the old "buy the dips and sell the rips" mentality that's made small cap investors so much money over the years. We're seeing it across the board, and we're seeing it with a number of our very own featured stocks right here at SmallCap Network. Just have a look at Extreme Networks (EXTR), a stock we added to our featured stocks list on our homepage just two days before the stock went absolutely ballistic in overnight trading. What it all comes down to is if small caps can continue to lead these markets higher, who knows just how high the major indexes can actually go. There's been several market melt-ups over the last sixty years, and if the second half of today's newsletter edition below any indication of what's to come, then every single investor in the country should take notice. A Positive Cycle for the Ages - Perpetual Optimism Pays Earlier this morning, the markets digested some pretty good fundamental data on the economy, and although stocks continue their lack of conviction for either direction on an extremely short-term basis, investors should probably stay focused on the long-term economic picture. Unemployment fell to a 10 year low of 4.5%, while job participation, the far more anemic number in recent years, came in at another consistent 63%, a number we've seen on several occasions in recent months. Yet, bond investors seem to be cheering the news this morning - something most probably weren't expecting. There's so much chatter surrounding the continued historically low job participation, but something investors need to remember is we have a retiring Boomer demographic, which is literally the largest demographic of workers and spenders the United States has ever seen. So while so many doom and gloom stock market naysayers and gold bugs continue to suggest the economic sky will fall sometime soon, maybe it's more important for long-term investors to simply stay the course. Economies are cyclical, as Nikolai Kondratieff spent so much time trying to prove. The early 1900's Russian economist created what are known today as Kondratieff seasons, or K-waves, and while it may initially seem like hollow mumbo-jumbo, there's actually a great deal of reason packed into the premise. Kondratieff was a proponent of the New Economic Policy in which promoted small private, free market enterprises in the Soviet Union. He was an astute student of the entire world's economies though, throughout history, and believed that Western capitalist economies go through long-term cycles of growth and recession that don't last for years, but for decades. His thought was that these super cycles, now called "Kondratieff waves," can span as much as 60 years. If he was right, then we're entering into what many believe to be a strong reflationary economy, something we're already seeing signs of with commodity prices in recent months. And if that ends up being the case, we could see an extremely long-term return to the days when investment opportunities were abundant and commodity investors could actually make money again. That's of course the short of it, but based on all of our own research here at SmallCap Network, it sure looks like things are shaping up to be another booming economic period in the years ahead. It probably isn't going to come without its bumps and bruises along the way, but if Americans can rally behind good 'ole fashioned capitalism -- and the freedoms our forefathers created for us - then maybe the next 12-15 years are going to be the best our country has ever seen. How's that for a bit of rare optimism these days?