What Is the Russell 2000? How Companies Get In and Out
The Russell 2000 holds the US companies ranked 1,001 to 3,000 by market value, so a company's place depends mostly on where it ranks on one set day. FTSE Russell now runs that ranking twice a year and calls the December 11, 2026 change its first December reconstitution in more than three decades.
The short answer. The list is rebuilt from a ranking at the October 30 close. Companies whose value that day puts them clearly past the size line switch indexes after the December 11 close. It matters well beyond the companies named, because the Russell 2000 is the usual scorecard for smaller American businesses and one fund tracking it holds about $75 billion. Membership follows the rules and says nothing about how good a business is. Half of the 54 companies that named the Russell 2000 in a press release headline from May 20 to June 30 were worth $226.4 million or less on October 16.
The Russell 2000 in three numbers
On this page
- What is the Russell 2000?
- How a company gets into the Russell 2000
- Why a $9.6 billion company can still count as small
- What changes with the December reconstitution
- What happens to companies that move in or out
- What it means for funds that track the index
- What to watch before December 14
- How we counted
- Frequently asked questions
What is the Russell 2000?
The Russell 2000 is a stock market index of roughly 2,000 smaller US companies. An index is a list of stocks whose combined value is tracked as one number, so people can follow a whole slice of the market at a glance.
FTSE Russell, the index arm of the London Stock Exchange Group, builds it with a plain rule. It lines up eligible US companies by market value, meaning the share price times the number of shares. The Russell 2000 takes the companies ranked 1,001 to 3,000 (FTSE Russell methodology). The 1,000 largest form the Russell 1000, and the two together make the Russell 3000. Our guide to how market capitalization is calculated covers the arithmetic.
At the last full ranking, on April 30, 2026, the index held 1,996 securities. The smallest member was worth $146.4 million and the middle company about $1.1 billion (FTSE Russell reconstitution page). All of them together were worth $3.5 trillion, while the Russell 3000 came to $75.6 trillion (FTSE Russell June 2026 summary).
Show the data
| Part | Value | Squares |
|---|---|---|
| Russell 2000 | $4.6 | 5 |
| Russell 1000 | $95.4 | 95 |
So the Russell 2000 is two thirds of the companies in the Russell 3000 but under a twentieth of its value. That gap is why it is followed on its own. A broad index is dominated by the largest names, and this one is where the rest of the market shows up.
It is not equal weighted. Each company counts in proportion to the value of its shares that trade freely, a measure FTSE Russell calls float-adjusted market value, meaning value adjusted to count only those shares. Float means the shares the public can buy, which leaves out stakes locked up by founders, governments or parent companies (float versus shares outstanding). Take a made-up company worth $1 billion with only 10% of its shares in public hands. It counts as $100 million, half the weight of a $200 million company whose shares all trade freely.
The index started in January 1984, with figures calculated back to the end of 1978 (FTSE Russell product profile). The same paper calls it "the default measure of small-cap performance" for analysts and commentators. It also finds that only 15% to 20% of Russell 2000 revenue comes from outside the US, against 35% to 40% for the Russell 1000. That is why the index tends to be read as a gauge of the domestic economy, rates and jobs included.
How a company gets into the Russell 2000
A company gets in by passing a few basic screens and then ranking between 1,001 and 3,000 by total market value at the close of rank day. The rules are written down in FTSE Russell's methodology, and anyone can read them.
The screens come first. The stock must trade on an eligible US exchange: Nasdaq, the NYSE and its sister markets, Cboe, or the new Texas Stock Exchange. Over-the-counter shares are out. A new entrant must close at $1.00 or higher on rank day, while a current member can also pass on a 30-day average of at least $1.00. The whole company must be worth at least $30 million (methodology, section 5).
Two more screens deal with ownership. At least 5% of the shares must be available to the public, and at least 5% of the voting power must sit with ordinary shareholders. Some structures are excluded outright, among them blank-check companies, closed-end funds, limited partnerships, royalty trusts and exchange-traded funds. Preferred shares, warrants and depositary receipts do not count either.
Then comes the ranking. FTSE Russell takes every eligible company's total market value from the last price on its main exchange that day. The 4,000 largest form the Russell 3000E, the family's broadest list, and the smaller indexes are cut from it by rank. A merger or spin-off that takes effect after rank day but before the lockdown gets its ranking recalculated. Once the lockdown starts, market values and membership are not reevaluated for such events, and a company ruled ineligible on rank day is not reconsidered after one (methodology, section 6.4).
- Pass the screens A US company trades on an eligible exchange, is worth at least $30 million and has 5% of its shares and votes in public hands; a newcomer must also close at $1 or more.
- Rank day At that day's close, every eligible stock is lined up by total market value: share price times all shares outstanding.
- Keep the largest 4,000 The 4,000 largest form the Russell 3000E, the family's broadest list.
- Places 1,001 to 3,000 The companies ranked 1,001 to 3,000 make up the Russell 2000, and the top 1,000 make up the Russell 1000.
- Apply the band A current member close to the dividing line keeps its index unless its value moved clearly past the line.
- Change at the close The new lists take effect after the market close on reconstitution day and trade from the next Monday.
Two values are at work, and they are easy to mix up. Total market value, counting every share, decides where a company ranks and so which index it joins. Float-adjusted value, counting only the freely traded shares, decides how much it weighs once inside.
New listings do not always wait for the full rebuild. FTSE Russell reviews initial public offerings every quarter and adds the ones that qualify, so a company that went public in the summer can join before the next ranking. In June and December, those additions are folded into the reconstitution itself.
Why the count is not exactly 2,000. A company that is bought or delisted between rebuilds leaves the index and is not replaced, so the count drifts below 2,000 during the year (methodology, section 9.2). A fund that tracks the index can also report a holdings number that differs from the index count, so the two figures are not interchangeable.
Why a $9.6 billion company can still count as small
A company already in the index does not switch just because it crossed the dividing line by a little. FTSE Russell puts a buffer, called a band, around the line between the Russell 1000 and the Russell 2000. An existing member switches only when it moves clearly past it.
On April 30, 2026, the line sat at about $5.7 billion, up 24% in a year. A new company worth more than that went straight to the Russell 1000. A current Russell 2000 member, though, could stay put well above the line. The largest one after the band was applied was UMB Financial, at $9.6 billion. On the other side, the smallest Russell 1000 company was Robert Half at $2.7 billion (FTSE Russell June 2026 summary).
The band is set in percentiles of total market value, not in dollars. FTSE Russell adds up company values from the largest down and marks how far down the list each company sits, as a percentage of the total. An existing member moves only if it lands more than 2.5 points of that running total past the line. That is how a fixed rule turns into a wide dollar range.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Under $1B | 2,766 |
| $1B to $2.7B | 658 |
| $2.7B to $9.6B | 819 |
| $9.6B to $20B | 306 |
| $20B and above | 520 |
The range is crowded. At the October 16 close, StockTitan's market data showed 819 US common stocks worth between $2.7 billion and $9.6 billion. Those two sizes belonged to the smallest Russell 1000 and the largest Russell 2000 members in June. Of those, 134 sat within 10% of the $5.7 billion line. These are plain counts by size, before FTSE Russell's screens. They are not a list of companies that will move, and the line itself will be reset on October 30.
There is no band at the bottom of the index. The smallest company that makes the cut is company number 3,000. A member that slips below it can stay in the Russell Microcap, the family's index of tiny companies, if it still qualifies, or leave the family. The Microcap covers ranks 2,001 to 4,000 before banding, so it overlaps the bottom half of the Russell 2000. Our page on small, mid and large cap stocks explains how those labels are usually drawn.
What changes with the December reconstitution
From 2026, the whole ranking runs twice a year. A company whose October 30 value puts it clearly past the size line changes index on December 11 instead of waiting until next June. A reconstitution is the full rebuild of the lists, and FTSE Russell describes this one as "the first December reconstitution in more than three decades" (FTSE Russell, September 1, 2026).
The schedule has changed before. The indexes were rebuilt every quarter at their 1984 launch, twice a year from 1987, and once a year in June from 1989 onward (FTSE Russell, January 16, 2025). That once-a-year schedule is what ends in 2026.
Show the data
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct 30 | Rank day: eligibility and market values are taken at the close. |
| Nov 13 | Preliminary additions and deletions are published after the close. |
| Nov 16 to 27 | Query period, when the published data can be questioned. |
| Nov 30 | Lockdown begins and the lists are treated as final. |
| Dec 11 | Changes take effect after the US close. |
| Dec 14 | Markets open with the rebuilt indexes. |
FTSE Russell gave two reasons. The single June trade had grown very large, with more than $200 billion changing hands at the close in both 2024 and 2025. The market had also been more volatile in the five years to June 2024 than in the 15 years before. FTSE Russell wanted membership to catch up with the market sooner (FTSE Russell semi-annual paper).
The second date was first planned for November. In January 2025 FTSE Russell announced the second Friday of November, pending a trial run in November 2025. On November 5, 2025 it moved the second date to the second Friday of December, and it confirmed the plan after the trial. The paper says that date keeps clear of Thanksgiving and falls a week before the third Friday of December, when other big index and derivatives rebalances bunch together.
December is a lighter version of June. The size ranking is rerun in full, so moves between the Russell 1000, the Russell 2000 and the Microcap happen as usual. Most other checks are left as they were in June.
| June | December | |
|---|---|---|
| Rank day | Last business day of April | Last business day of October |
| Preliminary lists | Five weeks before the change | Four weeks before the change |
| Lockdown after the query period | Three weeks | Two weeks |
| Change takes effect | Fourth Friday of June | Second Friday of December |
| Moves between size indexes | Yes | Yes |
| Growth and value scores | Recalculated for all | Only for new members and movers |
| Voting rights of existing members | Reviewed | Not reviewed again |
| Float changes for large private holders | Applied | Applied with a 3% buffer |
Growth and value scores are one example. FTSE Russell sorts each company partly into growth and value versions of its indexes, and in December it rescores only new members and companies changing size index. Everyone else keeps the June score. Voting rights of existing members are not researched again, and the preliminary lists come four weeks before the change instead of five (methodology, Appendix F).
The extra rebuild has a cost too. FTSE Russell's own simulations showed a modest decrease in turnover in June and a modest increase at the second date. It also brings a benefit. A company that failed an eligibility screen in June gets a second look within the same year. The FTSE Russell paper says so directly, noting that the extra review gives companies "a second opportunity to be considered for index eligibility" after failing in June.
What happens to companies that move in or out
A company that joins is added to the list many funds follow, and a company that leaves is taken off it, with the change taking effect at one close. The June 2026 rebuild shows how much moves at once.
In June, 244 companies joined the Russell 2000. Of those, 39 came down from the Russell 1000, 83 moved up from the Microcap, 17 were recent listings and 105 came from outside the Russell family. Another 160 left: 42 grew into the Russell 1000, 84 fell to the Microcap and 34 left the family altogether (FTSE Russell June 2026 summary). Health care was the largest group of newcomers, at 88.
Some companies have moved all the way up. FTSE Russell's product profile shows Amazon.com joining the Russell 2000 in June 1997 and the Russell 1000 a year later. Nvidia joined in June 1999 and moved up in June 2000. Those are exceptions picked from four decades, and in June 2026 twice as many members moved down to the Microcap as moved up to the Russell 1000.
Many joiners say so themselves. In StockTitan's news database, 56 press releases from 54 companies carried the Russell 2000 in their headline between May 20 and June 30, 2026, almost all announcing an addition. Most of them are small. At the October 16 close, their median value was about $226 million, and 46 of the 54 were worth less than $1.1 billion. For scale, the 2,000th largest US common stock in StockTitan's data was worth about $1.6 billion that day, before any of FTSE Russell's screens.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Week of May 25 | 6 |
| Week of Jun 1 | 2 |
| Week of Jun 8 | 3 |
| Week of Jun 15 | 4 |
| Week of Jun 22 | 12 |
| Jun 29 to 30 | 29 |
The timing has a pattern. A few companies spoke up right after the preliminary list of May 22 (FTSE Russell), with headlines such as GSI Technology's preliminary inclusion notice. The rest came in between, and about half waited until the change was real. 27 of the 56 came out on Monday, June 29, the first trading day with the new lists, among them Twin Disc and FreightCar America.
A headline before the effective date is a statement about the preliminary list, which can still change. For December, the list appears on November 13, queries run from November 16 to 27, and the lockdown starts on November 30. A release dated December 14 or later that says "joins" describes a change that has already happened.
What it means for funds that track the index
An index fund aims to match its index, so it adjusts its holdings when the list changes. How closely, and with which trades, depends on how each fund is run. The index makes its change at the close of reconstitution day, so that close is the reference point for funds adjusting their holdings. Our guide to index funds explains the idea in more detail.
One large example is the iShares Russell 2000 ETF, which "seeks to track the Russell 2000 Index". It held $75.2 billion in net assets on October 16, 2026, with an expense ratio of 0.19% (iShares fund page). An expense ratio is the yearly fee taken from the fund's assets.
Money measured against the index goes well beyond such funds. FTSE Russell counts about $12.2 trillion benchmarked to all its US indexes as of June 2025, active and passive together. At the end of 2025, US small company funds held about $2.3 trillion. About $1.7 trillion of it was measured against the Russell 2000 or its offshoots (FTSE Russell product profile).
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Jun 2017 | $76.0B |
| Jun 2018 | $97.7B |
| Jun 2019 | $107.5B |
| Jun 2020 | $126.6B |
| Jun 2021 | $186.0B |
| Jun 2022 | $143.1B |
| Jun 2023 | $134.4B |
| Jun 2024 | $219.6B |
| Jun 2025 | $217.2B |
| Jun 2026 | $553.9B |
All of that meets in the final auction of the trading day. At the June 2026 close, $219.9 billion traded on the NYSE and $334.0 billion on Nasdaq, a combined $553.9 billion (FTSE Russell reconstitution page). That is more than 2.5 times the $217.2 billion of June 2025. The FTSE Russell page gives no reason for the jump.
The FTSE Russell paper reports market feedback that two rebuilds may spread out the risk of making every change on a single day. Next year's closing figures will show how busy each date is, though trading totals alone cannot show how much of any change comes from adding December.
Benchmarked is not the same as tracked. The $12.2 trillion includes active funds that only compare themselves with a Russell index, and it covers every Russell US index, large companies included. Only index funds have to copy the list, and the closing trade also includes traders on the other side of those orders.
What to watch before December 14
Five dated signals will show what this December rebuild does. The first four are on FTSE Russell's schedule, and the last is exchange data FTSE Russell has reported after past rebuilds.
- The October 30 close, the baseline ranking behind most moves.
- The preliminary list on November 13, the first count of December additions and deletions, next to June's final 244 additions to the Russell 2000.
- The query period from November 16 to 27, when the published data can still be questioned.
- The updated lists on November 20, November 27 and December 4, which show how much changes between the preliminary list and the effective date.
- The trading at the December 11 close, the first look at how busy a December rebuild day is.
We plan to update this page after November 13 with the counts.
How we counted
The company announcements come from StockTitan's database of press releases. We counted visible releases dated May 20 to June 30, 2026 whose headline contains "Russell 2000", which gave 56 releases. One release listed several tickers and two companies issued two releases each, so the 56 come from 54 companies.
The count is a floor. It includes only companies that chose to issue a release naming the index in the headline, against 244 actual additions. Two of the 56 are not plain additions: one concerns a Russell 2000 style index and one a return to the index.
Market values for the announcing companies, the size counts and the 2,000th largest stock are StockTitan's closing values for October 16, 2026, the latest at writing. They are not the April 30 values FTSE Russell used, and the size counts cover active US common stocks without FTSE Russell's eligibility screens. The closing trade series joins FTSE Russell's 2017 to 2025 table with the 2026 figures on its reconstitution page.
Frequently asked questions
How many companies are in the Russell 2000?
About 2,000, the US companies ranked 1,001 to 3,000 by market value at the latest rebuild. The April 30, 2026 ranking put 1,996 securities in it, and the number drifts between rebuilds as members are bought out and new listings are added.
Is the Russell 2000 market cap weighted or equal weighted?
It is weighted by market value, counting only the shares the public can trade. For the same percentage move in its share price, a company with a bigger weight moves the index more.
What is the difference between the Russell 2000 and the Russell 3000?
The Russell 3000 holds the 3,000 largest eligible US companies. The Russell 2000 is its smaller part, places 1,001 to 3,000, while places 1 to 1,000 form the Russell 1000.
When is the Russell reconstitution in 2026?
Twice. The June rebuild took effect after the close on June 26, 2026. The December one uses October 30 as rank day, publishes preliminary lists on November 13 and takes effect after the close on December 11.
Is the Russell 2000 a small cap or a mid cap index?
FTSE Russell treats it as its small cap index. In April 2026 its members ran from $146.4 million to $9.6 billion. The smallest Russell 1000 company was $2.7 billion, so the band makes the two groups overlap at the edges.
Where can I see company announcements about Russell 2000 changes on StockTitan?
Each company's press releases appear on its StockTitan news page, including headlines about joining or leaving the index. The market cap rankings show where a company stands by size today.
Sources
- StockTitan market cap rankings
- GSI Technology release on StockTitan, May 26, 2026
- Twin Disc release on StockTitan, June 29, 2026
- FreightCar America release on StockTitan, June 29, 2026
- FTSE Russell, December 2026 reconstitution schedule, September 1, 2026
- FTSE Russell, Russell US Equity Indexes Construction and Methodology, v7.2, August 2026
- FTSE Russell, Russell Reconstitution page
- FTSE Russell, June 2026 Russell US Indexes Reconstitution: Summary of Changes
- FTSE Russell, Moving to a Semi-Annual Index Reconstitution Frequency, December 2025
- FTSE Russell, semi-annual reconstitution announcement, January 16, 2025
- FTSE Russell, Russell 2000 Index product profile, May 2026
- iShares Russell 2000 ETF fund page
The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an endorsement of any particular investment strategy. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.