Russell Investment Group will launch a microcap index on June 24; it will track the performance of 2,000 of the smallest publicly traded U.S. companies, according to Lori Richards, senior product manager at Russell Indexes.
The index will comprise the smallest 1,000 stocks in the small-cap Russell 2000, plus the next 1,000 companies below the index. It will represent roughly 3% of the U.S. equity market and will not include OTC bulletin board securities or pink-sheet stocks priced under $1.
The index includes companies with market capitalizations of about $55 million to $500 million. Russell will offer five years of performance data on the index, which had a weighted average market cap of $290 million last June.
Ms. Richards said 20 to 30 IPOs are likely to be added to the index each quarter.
