Definition of mosquito for English Language Learners. : a small flying insect that bites the skin of people and animals and sucks their blood.
What it is: Small-cap stock refers to a company with a market capitalization (calculated by taking a firm's current share price and multiplying that figure by the total number of shares outstanding) near the low end of the publicly traded spectrum.
Small cap - Typically new or relatively young companies, small caps have a market cap between $300 million to $2 billion. Although their track records won't be as lengthy as those of the mid to mega caps, small caps do present the possibility of greater capital appreciation - but at the cost of greater risk.