Russell 1000 Index

It’s an index. A broad one.

The Russell is actually a series of various indices that track the progress (or lack thereof) of stocks in a given basket. Like many indices, the Russell Index is actually owned or managed by the “footsie,” or “FTSI,” based in London, and the indices come in all kinds of flavors, like the Russell 3000 growth, the Russell 1000 Value, the Russell mid-cap, the Russell micro-cap, and the anemic Russell Top 200. No relation to Top Gear, the, uh…video Yelp of cars.

Why do we need yet another index? We already have the Vanguard series featuring the famous ticker SPY, or S&P 500, we have the Wilshire 5000, which isn’t really 5000, and we have a bunch of others, each of which give market insights from slightly different lenses.

The answer? Because investors are willing to pay for those insights and/or invest in those index funds, and will likely keep doing so until there’s no more money to be made.

At which point everything gets renamed to being an, um...outdex.