Russell 2000
The 2,000 smallest stocks in the Russell 3000, the standard benchmark for US small-cap investing.
What it tracks
FTSE Russell ranks all US-listed stocks by each June and builds the Russell 3000, the 3,000 largest. The Russell 2000 is specifically companies ranked 1,001st to 3,000th. The top 1,000 form the Russell 1000 (large and mid caps). No committee discretion, it's a purely rules-based, size-driven . Because small companies enter and exit the index frequently, turnover is high and the reconstitution in June each year can cause significant short-term price moves in affected stocks.
Geographic exposure
Where in the world the index is invested, by domicile of listed company. For global indices this varies significantly between developed and emerging markets.
The Russell 2000 is essentially 100% US companies. Unlike the S&P 500 and Dow, small-cap companies generate the vast majority of their revenues domestically, making this index far more sensitive to the US economic cycle, interest rates and domestic consumer spending than any large-cap index.
Approximate end-2025 figures
Historical performance
Annual total returns from 2001 onward, including reinvested . Move the slider to see what a different starting amount would have become, and switch to the bar view to see how uneven the path actually was.
Total return, dividends reinvested, before fees and taxes. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Returns by decade
Average annualised return for each full decade. This view makes it obvious that the path is anything but smooth, the 2000s were a lost decade for US equities, erasing all gains from the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis.
* 2020s is partial (2020–2025). All figures are approximate total return .
Sector breakdown
How the index splits across the eleven standard GICS sectors. The bigger the bar, the larger the weight in the index.
Approximate end-2025 figures
Top 10 holdings
The largest names in the index by weight. Together they make up a meaningful share of the whole, pay attention to concentration.
| # | Company | Ticker | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FTAI Aviation | FTAI | 0.5% |
| 2 | Sprouts Farmers Market | SFM | 0.5% |
| 3 | Corebridge Financial | CRBG | 0.4% |
| 4 | Applied Industrial Technologies | AIT | 0.4% |
| 5 | Onto Innovation | ONTO | 0.4% |
| 6 | Kinsale Capital Group | KNSL | 0.4% |
| 7 | RBC Bearings | RBC | 0.3% |
| 8 | Fabrinet | FN | 0.3% |
| 9 | HealthEquity | HQY | 0.3% |
| 10 | Ensign Group | ENSG | 0.3% |
ETFs that track it
The funds most long-term investors use to own this index. Lower are almost always better. Domicile matters for , UCITS funds are domiciled in Ireland (IE) for European investors, US-domiciled (US) for American ones.
| Ticker | Fund name | Provider | Domicile | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IWM | iShares Russell 2000 ETF | BlackRock | US | Dist | 0.19% |
| VTWO | Vanguard Russell 2000 ETF | Vanguard | US | Dist | 0.10% |
| ZPRR | SPDR Russell 2000 US Small Cap UCITS ETF Acc | State Street | IE | Acc | 0.30% |
Accumulating, are automatically reinvested inside the fund. You don't receive cash but the share price grows. Simpler for long-term and more tax-efficient in many European countries.
Distributing, are paid out to you as cash. You decide what to do with them, but you're also responsible for declaring and paying on each distribution. Common preference for investors who want regular income.
A bit of history
Frank Russell Company created the index in 1984 to give institutional investors a reliable small-cap benchmark. For decades it was mainly used by professional fund managers tracking the "size premium", the historical tendency of small caps to outperform large caps over long periods. The dot-com era was kind to the Russell 2000 relative to the Nasdaq (smaller tech exposure), but the 2008 financial hit it hard (-34%). The index has a pattern of sharp recoveries: after the 2020 COVID it surged over 90% from the March trough to end-2021 as stimulus money flowed into smaller domestic businesses. It has consistently underperformed the S&P 500 since 2014, a long stretch that has renewed debate about the size premium.
- + Exposure to a different part of the market, small companies grow faster than large ones in early economic cycles.
- + Historically, small caps have delivered a "size premium" over large caps over very long periods.
- + Pure domestic US exposure, less currency than global indices for US-based investors.
- + VTWO at 0.10% is one of the cheapest small-cap funds available.
- − Higher , the Russell 2000 regularly swings 40-60% in a single cycle, peak to trough.
- − The size premium has been absent since 2014, over a decade of underperformance vs the S&P 500.
- − Small companies are more vulnerable to recessions, credit tightening and rising interest rates.
- − Top 10 holdings add up to just ~4%, is extreme, but so is the noise.
- − IWM at 0.19% is fine; ZPRR (UCITS) at 0.30% is meaningfully more expensive for European investors.
All figures are approximate end-2025 values for educational illustration. Index composition, weights, holdings and returns change constantly. Nothing here is financial advice or a recommendation.