Russell Midcap Retains Market Leadership in February
Global index reflects a positive month despite world-wide selloff
 March 1, 2007 — Despite the widespread market selloff at month's end, the Russell Midcap® Index reflected a small gain of 0.16% for February. The index remains in positive territory for 2007, while most other market segments including the large-cap Russell 1000® Index declined enough in February to reflect a negative year-to-date return for 2007.
The U.S. equity market, as reflected by the Russell 3000® Index, suffered its first negative monthly performance since July as the broad-market benchmark dipped 1.64% for February. The Russell Midcap® Value Index (4.1%) led Russell's comprehensive family of 26 U.S. indexes for February, while the mega-cap Russell Top 50® Index (-3.74%) reflected the worst total return.
"This month's negative return for the Russell 3000 follows six consecutive months of positive returns," said Steve Wood, senior portfolio strategist. "After factoring in the slightly negative performance for February, the index continues to reflect a solid one-year return of 12%."
For those keeping score of the global equity market, the Russell Global Index reflected a slight loss of -0.4% for February, while the Russell Global Small Cap Index gained 1% for the month. A relatively strong return for February was reflected by the Russell Developed Pacific Basin Index (3.3%), while the Russell Latin America Index (-1.9%) showed some weakness.
Looking at U.S. style indexes, growth stocks in the large-cap and mega-cap tiers, outperformed their value counterparts. However, in the small-cap and micro-cap arenas, the reverse was true. In addition, the performance gap between growth and value was negligible among large caps and mega caps, but it widened to 1.2 percentage points in the small-cap arena.
In the Russell 3000, only 43% of the stocks turned in a positive return for February, while 50% of the stocks in the Russell Midcap gained ground for the month. Eight of the 12 sectors in the Russell Midcap showed a positive return for February, while only three sectors in the Russell 3000 ended the month with a positive return. The technology (1.5%) and utilities (2.8%) sectors in the Russell Midcap, for example, gained ground, while those sectors in the Russell 3000 lost ground.
In the Russell 1000, six of the top 20 performing stocks are in the materials & processing sector, including Florida Rock Industries (36.3%), Mosaic (27.7%) and Temple-Inland (20.3%).
In the small-cap Russell 2000® Index, the top three stocks in terms of performance for February are Onyz Pharmaceuticals (121.5%), Steel Technologies (58.1%) and Adeza Biomedical (55.3%).
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 (%) |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
February |
|
YTD |
| Russell 3000® Index |
|
-1.64% |
|
0.23% |
| Russell 1000® Index |
|
-1.72% |
|
0.17% |
| Russell 2000® Index |
|
-0.79% |
|
0.87% |
| Russell 2500™ Index |
|
-0.14% |
|
2.55% |
| Russell Midcap® Index |
|
0.16% |
|
3.55% |
| Russell Top 200® Index |
|
-2.48% |
|
-1.17% |
| Russell Top 50® Index |
|
-3.74% |
|
-3.01% |
| Russell Microcap® Index |
|
-1.00% |
|
0.27% |
| Russell 3000® Value Index |
|
-1.53% |
|
-0.25% |
| Russell 3000® Growth Index |
|
-1.75% |
|
0.71% |
| Russell 1000® Value Index |
|
-1.56% |
|
-0.30% |
| Russell 1000® Growth Index |
|
-1.88% |
|
0.64% |
| Russell 2000® Value Index |
|
-1.23% |
|
0.25% |
| Russell 2000® Growth Index |
|
-0.32% |
|
1.54% |
| Russell 2500™ Value Index |
|
-0.23% |
|
1.99% |
| Russell 2500™ Growth Index |
|
-0.05% |
|
3.13% |
| Russell Midcap® Value Index |
|
0.60% |
|
3.70% |
| Russell Midcap® Growth Index |
|
-0.22% |
|
3.42% |
| Russell Top 200® Value Index |
|
-2.36% |
|
-1.75% |
| Russell Top 200® Growth Index |
|
-2.61% |
|
-0.56% |
| RUSSELL GLOBAL INDEXES TOTAL RETURNS (%) |
|
|
| |
|
February |
| Russell Global Index |
|
-0.4% |
| Russell Global Large Cap Index |
|
-0.6% |
| Russell Global Small Cap Index |
|
1.0% |
| Russell Global ex-US Index |
|
0.6% |
| Russell Global ex-US Large Cap Index |
|
0.4% |
| Russell Global ex-US Small Cap Index |
|
2.0% |
| Russell Developed Index |
|
-0.4% |
| Russell Emerging Markets Index |
|
-0.5% |
February 2007
SECTOR PERFORMANCE |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Russell Midcap |
|
Russell 3000 |
| Technology |
|
1.45% |
|
-2.59% |
| Health Care |
|
-0.65% |
|
-2.14% |
| Consumer Discretionary & Services |
|
0.00% |
|
-1.43% |
| Consumer Staples |
|
-0.26% |
|
-2.23% |
| Integrated Oils |
|
0.87% |
|
-2.68% |
| Other Energy |
|
2.37% |
|
0.49% |
| Materials & Processing |
|
2.06% |
|
2.08% |
| Producer Durables |
|
-2.07% |
|
-0.90% |
| Autos & Transportation |
|
0.02% |
|
-0.58% |
| Financial Services |
|
-1.56% |
|
-2.75% |
| Utilities |
|
2.87% |
|
0.87% |
About Russell: Russell Investment Group, a global leader in multi-manager investing, provides investment products and services in 44 countries. Russell manages more than $200 billion in assets and advises clients worldwide representing more than $2.4 trillion. Founded in 1936, Russell is headquartered in Tacoma, Wash., with additional offices in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Sydney, Singapore, Auckland and Tokyo.
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 26 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 more than $3.8 trillion in assets are benchmarked to these U.S. indexes. In January 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, includes 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.
Russell Investment Group is the owner of the trademarks, service marks and copyrights related to its indexes.
Russell's indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly.
RC#4598
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