GameStop And AMC Could Soon Be In The Russell 1000 Index

If you had said during the beginning of the pandemic we’d be talking about whether or not retailer GameStop and dying movie chain AMC would be moved from the Russell 2000 up to the large cap Russell 1000 – instead of being dropped from the index altogether – people would have assumed you were joking.

But now that question is legitimately on the table thanks to the astronomical run in both names and the upcoming Russell Reconstitution, according to Bloomberg.

The reconstitution, which takes place on June 25, is going to affect more than $10 trillion in investors’ assets and exchange volumes are usually “among the heaviest of the year” around the time it happens. 

The cutoff for the Russell 1000 from the Russell 2000 is $5.2 billion. GameStop currently sports a market cap of $18.4 billion and AMC sports a market cap of $24.6 billion. 

FTSE Russell put out a press release last week explaining how the process is going to work: 

• “The market capitalization breakpoint which separates companies in the U.S. large-cap Russell 1000 Index and companies in the U.S. small-cap Russell 2000 Index increased by 73% from $3.0 billion in 2020 to $5.2 billion for 2021.”
• “The closely-watched final index membership lists, with breakouts for the Russell 1000 Index, the Russell 2000 Index and the Russell Midcap Index, will be published on Monday, June 28 when the Russell Reconstitution takes effect and the newly reconstituted indexes begin to operate.”

Catherine Yoshimoto, FTSE Russell Director of Product Management, said: “In 2020, overall capitalization for the US equity market stayed fairly flat, decreasing by 1%. However, we’ve seen a surge in growth in the first half of 2021 with the total market cap in the Russell 1000 reaching $44.1 trillion. We have also seen a resurgence in market capitalizations of small cap companies in the Russell 2000 reflecting the overall bounce back of US equity markets following the COVID-19 recession in early 2020.”

Any inclusion for shares of GME and AMC could have a profound effect not only on trading volume for the day, but also on morale amongst the retail crowd that touts the names, as they may see inclusion as a reason to rally and run up shares. 

Approximately $17.9 trillion is currently benchmarked to FTSE Russell indexes, the release notes. You can view the preliminary estimates for the reconstitution here.