Russell 2000-based derivatives blast volume records in July (Russell.com)

Russell 2000-based derivatives blast volume records in July

Tacoma, WA — August 3, 2007 — Monthly trading volume for the full range of derivatives products based on the small-cap Russell 2000® Index established some stunning volume records in July. Here are some highlights:

The iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (IWM) traded 2.16 billion shares in July, surpassing the 2 billion mark for the first time. The previous high was set in June when 1.9 billion shares were traded during the month and the volume in July increased by 900 million from the same month last year. This upward trend is continuing in August as a total of 285 million shares were traded in the first two days. "It ranks as the third-highest traded security in the U.S. market," said Kelly Haughton, strategic director for Russell indexes. "The volume for July once again surpassed Sun Microsystems, Intel, Ford and Microsoft."
Trading volume for options based on the Russell 2000 in the month of July surpassed its previous high for a one-month period by one million to 2,965,385. The total was about 1.8 million in June and the previous high was 1.95 million in May.
Trading volume for options on futures based on the Russell 2000 also set a monthly volume record, surpassing 345,000 in July.
Trading volume for futures based on the Russell 2000 hit a monthly record of 5.3 million (for a non-roll month). The cumulative total for 2007 now tops 32 million.

In addition, growth rates for futures and options based on the Russell 2000 exceed relatively slow rates for similar products based on other industry benchmarks. The collective growth rate for the various options and futures based on the Russell 2000 has increased more than 50% in the past one-year period.

"These record-setting numbers speak volumes about the Russell 2000's position as the industry's standard for a small-cap benchmark," said Haughton. "When investing in the relatively volatile small-cap arena, a growing majority of investors rank the Russell 2000 as the investment tool to rely on."

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About Russell: Russell Investment Group aims to improve financial security for people by providing strategic advice, world-class implementation, state-of-the-art performance benchmarks and a range of institutional-quality investment products. With $219.9 billion in assets under management, Russell serves individual, institutional and advisor clients in more than 40 countries. Russell provides access to some of the world's best money managers. It helps investors put this access to work in corporate defined benefit and defined contribution plans, and in the life savings of individual investors.

Founded in 1936, Russell is a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and headquartered in Tacoma, Wash. Russell has principal offices in Amsterdam, Auckland, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.

Russell's comprehensive family of global equity indexes, including the industry-leading Russell U.S. indexes, allow investors to seamlessly track performance of distinct market segments worldwide without gaps or overlaps. Russell's index story began in 1984 when the multi-manager investment firm launched its family of U.S. indexes to accurately measure U.S. market segments and better track investment manager behavior. The resulting index methodology produced the broad-market Russell 3000 and popular subcomponents such as the small-cap Russell 2000. Together, Russell's U.S. indexes have become the most widely used benchmarks by institutional investors and today about $4 trillion in assets are benchmarked to them. In early 2007, Russell applied the same pioneering index methodology to the world's equity markets to create the Russell Global Index and hundreds of subcomponent global indexes. Similar to how the Russell 3000 captures 98% of the investable U.S. equity market, the Russell Global Index captures 98% of the investable global equity market. The Russell Global Index, which reflects the performance of about 10,000 stocks in 63 countries, uses the Russell 3000 as its U.S. subcomponent and 300 other distinct subcomponents that are segmented according to size, region, country and sector.

Contact:
Steve Claiborne, 253-439-1858

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