Annual Reconstitution of Russell 3000 Announced

On Monday, Russell Investment Group released the companies that will be part of the firm’s annual reshuffling of the Russell 3000 Index.
According to a press release about the reconstitution, about one-third of the additions are in the financial services and health care sector, with 57 companies and 48 companies, respectively. Australia and the UK together are the origin of most new companies in the index (202 of the additions), followed by Hong Kong (92), Canada (90) and India (66).
Slight changes are expected in terms of sector weighting within the index, with the energy services sector likely seeing an increase from 3.9% at this point last year to 4.6%, while the health care sector (despite the number of additions) likely will decline in weighting from 12.1% to 11.9%. Financial services (22.4%) and consumer discretionary (13.4%) will remain the largest sectors.
Ninety-two initial public offerings (IPOs) have joined the Russell 3000 since the last reconstitution of the index and an additional 36 IPOs that came to market during the second quarter will be added this month as part of the reconstitution process.
“Turnover in more specific capitalization segments, such as the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, is expected to be lower this year as well given the low market volatility between large and small cap stocks,” said Lori Richards, client service director for Russell indexes, in the press release. “This is also due, in large part, to our rules-based methodology that adds IPOs on a quarterly basis and several other recent enhancements such as percentile banding.”
The Russell 3000 has increased more than $3 trillion from $15.3 trillion at this point last year to $18.5 trillion.
The preliminary additions to the Russell 3000 index can be found here.
The preliminary deletions from the Russell 3000 index can be found here.

Rydex Investments Near Reaching Deal to Sell

Rydex Investments, manager of mutual and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), is near a deal to sell itself for about $800 million to $1 billion, according to TheStreet.com.
Individuals familiar with Rydex told TheStreet.com Rydex could be sold to E*Trade Financial or Invesco. Followers of the company say an announcement of the sell is expected soon.
However, a spokeswoman at Rydex declined to comment further to TheStreet.com. Additional details about the deal, including financial advisers involved, could not be learned, the news report said.
Rydex manages more than 80 mutual funds and ETFs and boasts some $16 billion in assets under management.

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