U.S. Small Caps Shine in August, While Large Caps Outperform Worldwide
September 4, 2007 — Small-cap stocks in the U.S. market outperformed large caps in August, according to month-end total returns for Russell Indexes. The small-cap Russell 2000® Index gained 2.3% in August, while the large-cap Russell 1000® Index didn't keep pace, up 1.4% for the month. Even so, large caps maintain a year-to-date advantage over small caps in 2007, leading 5.3% to 1.4%.
Looking at the global market, the reverse is true. Large caps outperformed for August, while small caps maintain a slight year-to-date advantage.
"U.S. small-cap stocks, particularly small-cap growth names, attracted investors in August though we still see attractive valuations in the large-cap arena," said Steve Wood, senior portfolio strategist. "While the leadership position switched in favor of small caps for the month, growth stocks in both capitalization tiers continued to outperform their value counterparts."
The Russell 2000® Growth Index reflects a year-to-date gain of 6.3% for 2007, while the Russell 2000® Value Index (-3.1%) shows a loss. Similarly, the Russell 1000® Growth Index, up 8.2%, is outpacing the Russell 1000 Value Index, up 2.5%, in 2007.
The U.S. component of the Russell Global Index, the broad-market Russell 3000® Index, gained 1.4% in August. Every segment of the U.S. market showed a slightly positive increase for the month, except the Russell Midcap® Value Index, down 0.31%. The generally positive month, though, could not pull the small-cap value and microcap segments into positive year-to-date territory. The Russell 2000 Value (-3.1%), Russell 2500® Value Index (-1.4%), Russell Microcap® Index (-2.2%) and Russell Microcap® Value Index (-5%) all now reflect negative year-to-date numbers.
"Sector performance reveals the current market environment continues to favor consistent growth names," said Wood. "The technology sector in the Russell 1000 shows a strong 13.6% gain for 2007, while financial services (-6.4%) remains a drag on the index."
Looking at the global picture, the Russell Developed Index (-0.3%) outperformed the Russell Emerging Markets Index (-2.8%) for the month of August. Even so, the global emerging markets index has gained 22.3% year-to-date through the end of August as the Russell Developed Index trails with a 7% gain for the same period.
Regarding U.S. style indexes, growth stocks outperformed their value counterparts at every market capitalization range for August. Year-to-date figures show the Russell 3000® Growth Index (8%) has expanded its noteworthy year-to-date lead over the Russell 3000® Value Index (2%).
In the Russell 3000, 57% of the stocks turned in a positive return for August.
In the Russell 1000, 10 of the top 25 top-performing stocks for August are in the consumer discretionary sector, including Wynn Resorts (28.1%), GameStop (24.3%), and Hearst-Argyle Television (21.8%).
In the Russell 2000, four of the top-performing stocks for August are in the health care sector: Protalix BioTherapeutics (93.2%), Pharmion (68.4%), ArQule (44.4%) and Onyx Pharmaceuticals (42.5%). Overall, the top-performing small-cap stock for the month is Sulphco (96.8%).
For additional performance figures on Russell's indexes and the user-friendly Russell index returns calculator, please visit: www.russell.com/Indexes.
| RUSSELL INDEXES TOTAL RETURNS (%) |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
August |
|
YTD |
| Russell 3000® Index |
|
1.44% |
|
4.95% |
| Russell 1000® Index |
|
1.36% |
|
5.28% |
| Russell 2000® Index |
|
2.27% |
|
1.41% |
| Russell 2500™ Index |
|
1.06% |
|
3.51% |
| Russell Midcap® Index |
|
0.17% |
|
5.99% |
| Russell Top 200® Index |
|
1.87% |
|
5.04% |
| Russell Top 50® Index |
|
2.21% |
|
4.24% |
| Russell Microcap® Index |
|
0.82% |
|
-2.24% |
| Russell 3000® Value Index |
|
1.19% |
|
1.96% |
| Russell 3000® Growth Index |
|
1.67% |
|
7.98% |
| Russell 1000® Value Index |
|
1.12% |
|
2.45% |
| Russell 1000® Growth Index |
|
1.59% |
|
8.15% |
| Russell 2000® Value Index |
|
2.00% |
|
-3.14% |
| Russell 2000® Growth Index |
|
2.52% |
|
6.26% |
| Russell 2500™ Value Index |
|
0.51% |
|
-1.36% |
| Russell 2500™ Growth Index |
|
1.53% |
|
8.27% |
| Russell Midcap® Value Index |
|
-0.31% |
|
2.31% |
| Russell Midcap® Growth Index |
|
0.54% |
|
9.07% |
| Russell Top 200® Value Index |
|
1.63% |
|
2.48% |
| Russell Top 200® Growth Index |
|
2.11% |
|
7.85% |
| Russell Microcap® Value Index |
|
0.18& |
|
-5.01% |
| Russell Microcap® Growth Index |
|
1.45% |
|
0.64% |
| RUSSELL GLOBAL INDEXES TOTAL RETURNS |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
August |
|
YTD |
| Russell Global Index |
|
-0.6% |
|
8.4% |
| Russell Global Large Cap Index |
|
-0.3% |
|
8.3% |
| Russell Global Small Cap Index |
|
-2.7% |
|
9.4% |
| Russell Global ex-US Index |
|
-2.0% |
|
11.2% |
| Russell Global ex-US Large Cap Index |
|
-1.6% |
|
10.8% |
| Russell Global ex-US Small Cap Index |
|
-5.1% |
|
13.8% |
| Russell Developed Index |
|
-0.3% |
|
7.0% |
| Russell Emerging Markets Index |
|
-2.8% |
|
22.3% |
Russell 2000 Index
SECTOR RETURNS |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
August |
|
YTD |
| Technology |
|
2.78% |
|
8.14% |
| Health Care |
|
5.19% |
|
5.89% |
| Consumer Discretionary & Services |
|
-0.4% |
|
-1.1% |
| Consumer Staples |
|
4.53% |
|
12.2% |
| Integrated Oils |
|
-10.35% |
|
-28.66% |
| Other Energy |
|
-0.59% |
|
6.27% |
| Materials & Processing |
|
-0.05% |
|
13.58% |
| Producer Durables |
|
-0.6% |
|
6.59% |
| Autos & Transportation |
|
-1.04% |
|
4.05% |
| Financial Services |
|
5.82% |
|
-10% |
| Utilities |
|
3.21% |
|
-2.13% |
About Russell: Russell Investment Group provides 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.
Contacts:
Steve Claiborne, 253-439-1858
Russell Investment Group, a Washington, USA corporation, operates through subsidiaries worldwide. Russell Investment Group is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.
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Russell's indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly.
RC#4736
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