Russell Reconstitution Restocks with 1,242 Additions

Russell Investments restocked the Russell Global Index with 1,242 newly added companies worldwide from 62 countries. The United States ranked on top with 279 additions, while five continents are represented in the list of the top 10 countries that included:

• India (with 93 additions),
• Canada (89),
• Taiwan (89),
• Australia (51),
• China (43),
• United Kingdom (41),
• South Korea (36),
• Russia (34),
• Brazil (32).

According to Russell, the list of additions also extends the reach of the Russell Global Index to include companies from five additional emerging markets for the first time: Kazakhstan, Qatar, Tunisia, Ukraine and Vietnam (see Vietnamese Firms Make Russell Index Cut).

Russell’s U.S. indexes currently have $4.4 trillion in assets benchmarked against them and account for 58.5% of institutional benchmarked products, according to the firm. The 2008 reconstitution of the Russell Indexes took place after the market closed on June 27.

New for 2008

• In the calculation of styles in 2008, Russell said it will not adjust for the impact of Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) 158 for U.S. companies as in 2007.
  Government holders have been divided into three categories: Direct Government Holders, Indirect Government Holders, Government Pensions. Each category is defined differently in terms of determining available shares/float.
• Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Faroe Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands have been added to the BDI list of countries.

Sub-Component Changes

Addition to the Russell Global Index means automatic inclusion into several sub-component indexes. For example, a small-cap stock in Vietnam also is added to the Russell Emerging Markets Index, Russell Asia Index, Russell Asia Pacific Index, and Russell Global Small Cap Index, among others, as well as the related value or growth style indexes, according to a release.

This list of global additions resulted from Russell’s annual index reconstitution process, which realigns every Russell index simultaneously to reflect current market realities.

“The annual reconstitution process is an essential part of providing truly representative equity benchmarks for investors,” said Stephen Wood, senior portfolio strategist for Russell. “This process captures the changing fortunes of stocks worldwide and recalibrates the indexes to reflect those changes. This is important for investors who want to better gauge the performance of their stock portfolios or retirement plans.”

This year’s list of additions for the Russell Global Index includes 295 stocks in the materials and processing sector as well as 220 financial services and 162 consumer discretionary firms. The new members include 47 initial public offerings that came to market during the second quarter, including eight in China and five in India.

The Russell Global Index, which covers 98% of the investable global market and includes more than 10,000 securities in 70 countries, currently has a market-capitalization range of $468 billion (Exxon Mobil) to $167 million (NVE Corp., based in Minnesota) and a median market capitalization of $32 billion.