Since the beginning of the year he took 9

Mean values, of course, lost their superb recent months on the stock market plan, but beautiful "nuggets" still exist. This is reminiscent of the Midcaps trophy, which the second annual was held yesterday evening. A jury composed of representatives of the organizers Euronext, Middlenext, Ernst & Young, Oddo & Cie but also of "Echos" partners of the operation with BFM, analyzed different criteria, such as economic performance, governance, or even the stock route (read box).

"This year, the sample of the investigated companies was broader with 246 taken against 192 last year, says Edith Parat, responsible of the average values for Oddo.". The discussions were facilitated: beyond databases encrypted, we wanted introduce a qualitative dimension.

In the end, 21 companies have been nominated and 7 companies were rewarded: Sogeclair stores Contracting, Meilleurtaux, Wavecom, Aufeminin, Petit Forestier and Linedata Services. He received the award of excellence, presented by Xavier Fontanet, President and CEO of Essilor.

Of the craze for caution

These pupils recall that the small cap have all of the major. According to the last annual panorama carried out by Ernst & Young ("Les Echos" from November 24), the rated average values recorded a growth in their sales and of their workforce of more than 10, while improving their operational profitability (at 5.7) and net profitability (3.1).

Despite their excellent economic health, they suffered the last few months of a shift of investors after several years of brilliant performance. The CAC Small 90 fell by 12.5 between late April and late July. It took a bit of ground in October and November, but continues to under-perform the CAC 40. Since the beginning of the year, he took 9.45, 13.29 for the index of large values.

The CAC Mid & Small 190 better held with 21.32 on eleven months. "In recent weeks, the trend has been relatively hesitant." Managers demonstrate caution, while they do observe a net recovery on the segment of average values, note Edith Parat. It is first and foremost in a marketplace of ideas, where the selection is paramount. "More analysts and strategists are concerned, indeed, the future of the asset class. If few provide guidance to the decline, most believe that the outperformance is behind us.

In a recent study, the research team from Société Générale recalls that European values have clearly benefited from sector bias since 2000, the universe being particularly rich in industrial values (27.3 of the MSCI Europe Small Cap index). But more cyclical than their big sisters, they could suffer from the slowdown in global growth anticipated for 2007. However, the fragility of the dollar should encourage the small cap to large values, more sensitive to the evolution of the greenback, say analysts of phosphorus (Idmidcaps, Valquant and Daybyday).

In any event, the craze for mean values still prevailed at the beginning of the year has given way to a certain distrust. Flows in the Fund are dried up. According the EuroPerformance-group Fininfo data, French UCITS specialized on small and medium capitalization have stopped suffer net redemptions since May. Over the past six months, these redemptions reach an amount of approximately 1.34 billion euros (1).