The small-capitalization oriented Russell 2000 carved out a fresh intraday peak early Thursday, a day after marking a record close on Wednesday, underlining the out-performance of index against its larger-cap peers. The Russell 2000 was recently up 0.4% at 1,623.10, occurring after it closed at an all-time peak at 1,616.37 on Wednesday for the first time since Jan. 24. For the year, the small-cap benchmark, which has been relatively resilient to the threat of trade wars and rising rates, is 5.7% year to date, compared with an advance of 0.2% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a rise of 1.9% for the S&P 500 index which tracks the largest capitalization companies.