Firstly, I’d never buy anything based on assumed certainties about what the fed, or any central bank, might do later this year. Anything that short term is likely already in the price anyway (just look at treasury yields).
A product as specific as a US small cap fund isn’t typically the first thing I would recommend to a new investor.
If you are going to buy something like that, it’s better to do so as part of a carefully considered long term portfolio. In other words, I think it’s best to buy something for a real reason rather than because the fed might cut rates this year. Buying things based on the short term orthodox outlook for rates is more of a trade (and likely just a punt) rather than an investment.
Also, I’m not sure a US Small Cap fund is the best tool for a bet on fed rate cuts anyway. If I was to make that trade, I’d use the high hype, high PE, large cap market darlings - the Nasdaq would be my weapon of choice.
US small caps, most small caps really, are not exactly a momentum trade. They are actually more of a value trade, with far better earnings yields than US large caps at the moment. They are actually historically cheap by conventional measures and abnormally so in relation to large caps. Perhaps more of a contrarian play than a rate driven momentum play.
Don’t get me wrong, there is IMO a good reason to hold small caps, US or otherwise. I have around 10% of my total invested wealth in them. I use various funds in different accounts depending on the availability on each of the platforms I use. I do use a US small cap fund in one account. I use R2SC, an ETF that tracks the Russell 2000. It’s very cheap for a small cap tracker at 0.30% and the spread isn’t too bad either. Not much evidence that active managers outperform in this space, so no need to incur the extra costs associated with an actively managed fund (that will likely just be concentrated in the expensive stuff anyway).