Eric Green, CIO of Penn Capital Management, suggests that this rally has been long overdue, given the prolonged outperformance of large-cap stocks, as quoted on Yahoo Finance. A Less-Hawkish Fed The latest employment report and the Consumer Price Index data both indicate that inflation is on the decline. Additionally, the valuation gap between large and small-cap companies, as well as private and public markets, suggests that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity may pick up.