Russell 2000
Encyclopedia
The Russell 2000 Index is a small-cap stock market index
Stock market index
A stock market index is a method of measuring a section of the stock market. Many indices are cited by news or financial services firms and are used as benchmarks, to measure the performance of portfolios such as mutual funds....

 of the bottom 2,000 stocks in the Russell 3000 Index.

The Russell 2000 is by far the most common benchmark
for mutual fund
Mutual fund
A mutual fund is a professionally managed type of collective investment scheme that pools money from many investors to buy stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities.- Overview :...

s that identify themselves as "small-cap
Market capitalization
Market capitalization is a measurement of the value of the ownership interest that shareholders hold in a business enterprise. It is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a publicly traded company...

",
while the S&P 500
S&P 500
The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. The stocks included in the S&P 500 are those of large publicly held companies that trade on either of the two largest American stock...

 index is used primarily for large capitalization stocks. It is the most widely quoted measure of the overall performance of the small-cap to mid-cap company shares. The index represents approximately 8% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000 Index. The average market capitalization for a company in the index is around $1.26 billion. The median market cap is around $528 million. The market cap of the largest company in the index is around $5.0 billion. As of early August 2011, the index trades at the 715 level, still down though 17% from its highs around the 855 level in July 2007.

There is the competing S&P 600
S&P 600
The S&P 600 SmallCap Index, more commonly known as the S&P 600, is a stock market index from Standard & Poor's. It covers roughly the small-cap range of US stocks, using a capitalization-weighted index...

 from Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's is a United States-based financial services company. It is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks and bonds. It is well known for its stock-market indices, the US-based S&P 500, the Australian S&P/ASX 200, the Canadian...

,
which is not commonly used,
along with other indexes from other financial information providers.

The ticker symbol
Ticker symbol
A stock symbol or ticker symbol is a short abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both. "Ticker symbol" refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker...

 on most systems is ^RUT.

Top 10 Holdings

Top 10 Holdings as of March 31, 2011
  • Riverbed Technology
    Riverbed Technology
    Riverbed Technology is a technology company that specializes in improving the performance of networks and networked applications. It was founded May 23, 2002 by Jerry Kennelly and Steve McCanne in San Francisco, California where its world headquarters remains...

     
  • Verifone
    VeriFone
    VeriFone is a company that makes point-of-sale equipment. It was founded and incorporated in Hawaii in 1981, and named itself after its first product, the name standing for Verification telephone....

     
  • Tibco Software
    Tibco Software
    TIBCO Software Inc. is a provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments. TIBCO manages information, decisions, processes and applications in real-time for over 4,000 customers worldwide...

     
  • Brigham Exploration 
  • Rackspace
    Rackspace
    Rackspace US, Inc. is an IT hosting company based in San Antonio, Texas. The company also has offices in Australia, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Hong Kong, and data centers operating in Texas, Illinois, Virginia, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong in late 2008...

     
  • Nordson Corporation
    Nordson Corporation
    Nordson Corporation is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures dispensing equipment for consumer and industrial adhesives, sealants and coatings. The company also manufactures equipment used in the testing and inspection of electronic components as well as...

     
  • Sotheby's
    Sotheby's
    Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

     
  • American Capital Strategies
    American Capital Strategies
    American Capital is an alternative asset management company based in Bethesda, Maryland. Founded in 1986 and publicly traded since 1997, American Capital is the largest U.S. publicly traded private equity fund and one of the largest publicly traded alternative asset managers...

     
  • Deckers Outdoor Corporation
    Deckers Outdoor Corporation
    Deckers Outdoor Corporation is a footwear manufacturer based in Goleta, California, United States. It began in 1973 as a sandal producer, run by Doug Otto. Deckers currently manufactures six brands, Teva, UGG Australia, Simple Shoes, Sanuk, Tsubo, Ahnu and Mozo.- Teva :Mark Thatcher was the...

     
  • Acme Packet
    Acme Packet
    Acme Packet is a company based in Bedford, Massachusetts which produces and markets Session Border Controllers , multiservice security gateways and session routing proxies . It is a public company incorporated in Delaware...

     

Top sectors by weight

  • Financial Services
  • Technology
  • Health Care
  • Consumer Discretionary
  • Producer Durables

Investing

Currently, investment opportunities exist where one can capitalize on replicated movements in direct correlation to the Russell 2000. Asset management funds such as iShares
IShares
iShares are a family of exchange-traded funds managed by BlackRock. The first iShares were known as WEBS but were since rebranded.Each iShares fund tracks a bond or stock market index...

, ProShares, Direxionshares and RydexShares offer ETFs
Exchange-traded fund
An exchange-traded fund is an investment fund traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, commodities, or bonds, and trades close to its net asset value over the course of the trading day. Most ETFs track an index, such as the S&P 500 or MSCI EAFE...

 that attempt to match the precise performance of the index in numerous ways. They are the following:


Index Performance


Inverse Index Performance


& Leveraged 200% Index Performance


& Inverse Leveraged 200% Index Performance


Leveraged 300% Index Performance


Leveraged 300% Index Performance


Inverse Leveraged 300% Index Performance


Inverse Leveraged 300% Index Performance


Value Sector Performance


Value Sector Leveraged 200% Performance


Value Sector Inverse Leveraged 200% Performance


Growth Sector Performance


Growth Sector Leveraged 200% Performance


Growth Sector Inverse Leveraged 200% Performance

See also

  • Russell Investments
  • Russell Indexes
    Russell Indexes
    The Russell Indexes are a family of global equity indices that allow investors to track the performance of distinct market segments worldwide. Many investors use mutual funds or exchange-traded funds based on the Russell Indexes as a way of gaining exposure to certain portions of the U.S. stock...

  • Russell 3000 Index
  • Russell 2500 Index
    Russell 2500 Index
    The Russell 2500 Index measures the performance of the 2,500 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index, or about 19% of its total capitalization. Weighted average capitalization is approximately $2 billion and median capitalization is $705.8 million. The largest company in the index is $4.5...

  • Russell 1000 Index
  • Russell Top 200 Index
    Russell Top 200 Index
    The Russell Top 200 Index measures the performance of the 200 largest companies in the Russell 1000 Index, with weighted average market capitalization of $110.5 billion...

  • Russell Top 50 Index
    Russell Top 50 Index
    The Russell Top 50 Index measures the performance of the largest companies in the Russell 3000 Index. It includes approximately 50 of the largest securities based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership and represents approximately 40% of the total market capitalization of...

  • Russell Midcap Index
  • Russell Microcap Index
    Russell Microcap Index
    The Russell Microcap Index measures the performance of the microcap segment of the U.S. equity market. It makes up less than 3% of the U.S. equity market...

  • Russell Small Cap Completeness Index
    Russell Small Cap Completeness Index
    The Russell Small Cap Completeness Index measures the performance of the companies in the Russell 3000 Index excluding the companies in the S&P 500 Index. It provides a performance standard for active money managers seeking a liquid extended benchmark, and can be used for a passive investment...

  • S&P 600 Index

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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