Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP), a leading provider of simulation and modeling software for pharmaceutical discovery and development, will join the Russell Microcap® Index when Russell Investments reconstitutes its family of U.S. indexes on June 25, according to a preliminary list of additions posted June 11 on www.russell.com.
Membership in the Russell MicrocapIndex, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the appropriate growth and value style indexes. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.
“Our expected addition to the Russell Microcap Index increases our visibility and credibility within the investment community,” said Walt Woltosz, chairman and chief executive officer of Simulations Plus. “We believe our inclusion in the index is directly related to the success of our aggressive sales and marketing strategy that is delivering solid fundamental improvement.”
Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. An industry-leading $3.9 trillion in assets currently are benchmarked to them.
Annual reconstitution of Russell Indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization to create the Russell 3000® Index and Russell Microcap. These investment tools originated from Russell’s multi-manager investment business in the early 1980s when the company saw the need for a more objective, market-driven set of benchmarks in order to evaluate outside investment managers.
Total returns data for the Russell Microcap and other Russell Indexes is available at http://www.russell.com/Indexes/performance/default.asp.