Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT: AST), a biotechnology company focused on the emerging field of regenerative medicine, today announced that it has been added to the Russell 2000®, Russell 3000®, Russell Global and Russell Microcap® indexes following Russell Investments' ("Russell") reconstitution of its comprehensive set of U.S. and global equity indexes after the close of the U.S. markets on June 26, 2015. Each June, Russell completely rebalances its indexes, known as a reconstitution, to reflect market changes in the past year.
The Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for passive and active investment strategies. Approximately $5.7 trillion in assets are currently benchmarked to Russell indexes and more than $800 billion in assets are invested in products based on them. The most well-known index of the series is the Russell 2000®, a subset of the Russell 3000® Index that measures the performance of the small-cap segment of the U.S. equity market.
Russell determines membership for its equity indexes, which remains in place for one year, primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes. The Russell 3000® captures the 3,000 largest U.S. stocks as of the end of May of each year, ranking them by total market capitalization. The largest 1,000 companies in this ranking make up the Russell 1000® and the next largest 2,000 companies comprise the Russell 2000®. The Russell 3000® also serves as the U.S. component to the Russell Global Index. The Russell Microcap® consists of the smallest 1,000 securities in the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, plus the next 1,000 smallest eligible securities by market cap.
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