Russell 3000 shuffles index

After bouncing in and out of the Russell 3000 index at least twice in recent years, Colorado Springs-based Westmoreland Coal Co. will be back in the popular stock market barometer as of June 27, based on preliminary calculations.
Westmoreland and Springs-based Century Casinos Inc. were deleted last year from the index and instead became part of the Russell Microcap Index. Locally based Spectranetics Corp. remains part of the Russell 3000 index. Among other local public companies, Golden Cycle Gold Corp. will temporarily join the Russell Microcap index until it is acquired June 30 by South African mining giant AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., while Simtek Corp. will be dropped from the Microcap index. Ramtron International Corp. remains part of the Microcap index.
The changes are part of an annual reshuffling of the indices, which include the nation’s largest public companies based on the total value of each company’s stock. The Russell 3000 index includes the nation’s 3,000 largest public companies, while the Microcap index includes the smallest 1,000 members of the Russell 3000 and 1,000 additional smaller companies. Tacoma, Wash.-based Russell Investment Group will post revised lists of companies it is adding and dropping from the indices on at www.russell.com/Indexes/membership/Reconstitution/default.asp.
Russell’s indices are used as benchmarks for more than $4 trillion in investments.