Russell 2500 Index

The Russell 2500 Index is a broad index, featuring 2,500 stocks that cover the small- and mid-cap market capitalizations. The Russell 2500 is a market cap-weighted index that includes the smallest 2,500 companies covered in the Russell 3000 universe of United States-based listed equities.

The Russell 2500 Index is designed to be broad and unbiased in its inclusion criteria and is recompiled annually to account for the inevitable changes that occur as stocks rise and fall in value. The space covered by the blending of small- and mid-cap stocks is sometimes referred to as "smid" cap and can describe any company up to the $10 billion market cap range. These companies are generally considered to be more growth oriented than large-cap stocks, and may experience more volatility than the latter over long-term periods.

Launched on July 1, 1995, companies selected for inclusion in the Russell 2500 Index are chosen based on float-adjusted market capitalization. On the last trading day of May of each year, FSTE Russell ranks eligible companies based on their total market capitalization values, and on the last Friday of June of each year, the index is reconstituted. To be eligible for inclusion in the Russell 2500 Index, a security must trade on the NYSE, NYSE MKT, NASDAQ, or ARCA exchanges. The index is monitored via the ticker symbol R25I.

The Russell 2500 Index comprises approximately 2500 of the smallest securities, based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership. Companies included in the index mostly come from financial services, producer durables and consumer discretionary industries. The component companies and the industry composition of the index is subject to change over time.

Those who wish to invest in the overall performance of the Russell 2500 Index may invest in the iShares Russell Small/Mid-Cap Index Fund, which seeks to track the performance of the Russell 2500 Index.

BlackRock uses a representative sampling indexing strategy to manage the Fund. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that seeks to invest in a representative sample of securities that mimics the investment profile of the underlying Russell 2500 Index. The fund generally invests at least 90 percent of its assets in the securities of the underlying index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics (based on factors such as market capitalization and industry weightings), fundamental characteristics (such as return variability and yield) and liquidity measures similar to those of the underlying index. The fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the underlying index.