It hasn’t been much fun being a small-cap investor these past few months. Not only has one been on the receiving end of some significant share price falls, but the final straw was having to send a painful cheque to HMRC, primarily because of last year’s CGT profits – now a distant memory!

I like to think of myself as a fairly rational investor. But with some of the recent wild price gyrations having been anything but rational, it has all been rather difficult and frustrating. I find that in a bull market, good news might send a share up 5-10 per cent. However, in a bear market, even mildly negative news seems to knock a price by 25 per cent-plus. Take structural steel plc Severfield-Rowen, an outstanding performer these past years, and sadly one I missed. A week ago, it announced that there had been some softening of markets and that it would deliver growth this year “but at a somewhat lower level than our previous expectations”. Market reaction? The shares fall no less than 37 per cent! The idea that SR’s real worth as a plc – with significant Olympic stadium orders in the bag – can possibly have fallen by that amount is simply ludicrous.