This article describes an exchange traded fund that tracks an index, commodity, currency, or varied basket of securites. View articles referencing this fund.

 

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Tim Plaehn

IWM AT A GLANCE

 

 

 

 

 

 

The IShares Russell 2000 Index Fund, symbol IWM, is an exchange traded fund (ETF) designed to track the Russell 2000 Stock Index before fees and expenses. The Russell 2000 Index is a global index of small capitalization funds. IWM has been in existence since 5/22/2000.

IWM gives the investor exposure to the bulk of the U.S. small capitalization stocks. Some believe that small cap stock can give individual investors an advantage over institutional investors. Institutional investors cannot invest in small cap companies without significantly affecting the market value. Also, small cap and large cap stocks often have different cycles of advance and decline and investors may catch different cycles (preferably up cycles) by switching between large and small cap stocks.

Russell 2000 Index

The Russell 2000 Index is comprised of a subset of the Russell 3000 Index. The indexes contain 3000 and 2000 stocks respectively. The Russell 3000 stocks make up 98% of the market capitalization of all traded U.S. stocks. The Russell 2000 stocks have a total market capitalization of just 10% of the entire Russell 3000.

Here are some statistics on the Russell 2000 stocks (as of 1/31/2008):

• Average market cap: $1.316 billion
• Median market cap: $ 541 million
• Largest company by market cap: $7.874 billion
• Smallest company by market cap: $38 million

Total Returns

Source: Russell Investments [1]

References