New Delhi, Nov. 25 -- Retail investors' favourite small-cap segment has been facing a challenging time on Dalal Street in 2025, as a majority of counters have lost significant value, pushing them to trade at multi-month lows.

The once-favoured space is now lagging, as poor earnings and rich valuations have led to EPS downgrades across the pack, making them vulnerable to even minor corrections in the Indian stock market. This has also prompted investors to alter their portfolios toward large-cap and mid-cap stocks, thus hitting the Nifty Smallcap 100 index hard.

The index has already lost 6% in 2025, sharply underperforming the Nifty Midcap 100 and the benchmark Nifty 50, which rallied 5.20% and 9.70%, respectively, over the same period....