Small-cap stocks are making noise lately. IWM just posted its 9th consecutive day of gains—the best winning streak since 1990. Meanwhile, small caps are outperforming large caps by roughly 1% year-over-year, which definitely turns heads in the current market environment.

Here's the catch though: despite this solid rally, IWM still hasn't managed to break through to a fresh 52-week high. That milestone hasn't been reached since February 2023, when SPY was hitting new highs and the landscape looked very different. The gap between these two benchmarks tells an interesting story about market leadership and where money's actually flowing right now.