Russell US Indexes – 40 Years Of Insights

FTSE Russell

Research

31 Pages

June 2019

FTSE Russell walks through the evolution of its US equity indexes, explaining how a rules-based, comprehensive framework reshaped benchmarking and passive investing. The paper highlights how covering ~98% of the market with 3,000 stocks challenged legacy indexes and quietly enabled earlier exposure to future winners, sometimes years ahead of competitors.

Key Takeaways

Broad Market Coverage: The Russell 3000 captures ~98% of the US equity universe using 3,000 stocks, offering far wider exposure than the 500-stock S&P 500.

Massive Asset Adoption: Roughly $9 trillion in assets are benchmarked to Russell indexes, with ETF assets alone exceeding $600 billion as of 2024.

Dynamic Size Breakpoints: The large-cap cutoff rose from ~$1B in 1984 to ~$5.2B in 2021, reflecting a more than 20x shift in market structure.

Miscellaneous Financial History

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