Timing the US stock market is usually a fool’s errand, a fact not lost on venerable small-cap investing pioneer Chuck Royce. Earlier this year, he and other investors focused on smaller US companies watched as they suffered their worst stint relative to larger stocks in more than two decades.

But smaller companies have seen rays of hope in recent weeks amid a sudden rotation away from Big Tech and other megacaps and into smaller, lesser-known names. As the investing climate turns sunnier for small caps, at least for now, the 84-year-old Royce this month announced plans to end his 52-year portfolio management career this autumn, transitioning to an advisory role as part of his eponymous firm’s long-term succession programme.

Royce started in finance as an equities analyst in the 1960s, and his stockpicking tenure dates to 1972, when he took over management of the Pennsylvania mutual fund, since renamed the Royce Small-Cap fund. He put his approach — eschewing the biggest names in the S&P 500 for lesser-known names with above-average profits and enticing valuations — into practice about a decade before the debut of the Russell 2000, the best-known US small-cap index.