Catherine Yoshimoto
Mega-cap stocks were again the focus of attention at the 2025 Russell US Indexes reconstitution (“Russell recon”). Here are some key facts and figures from this widely followed equity market event.
- Mega-cap shift: Nvidia became the largest Russell 3000 stock by end-June, surpassing Apple and Microsoft in market cap.
- Large-cap dominance: Over the year to April 2025, the Russell 1000 rose 11.9% (vs. just 0.9% for the Russell 2000), reaffirming the lead of mega-cap tech.
- Upcoming changes: In 2026, Russell recon moves from annual to semi-annual, aiming to enhance market representation and usability.
The two key dates in Russell recon
The Russell US Indexes are designed to reflect the ever-changing US equity market and are the benchmarks of choice for many professional investors: around $12trn of assets track the Russell US Indexes and approximately two-thirds of actively managed US equity institutional assets are benchmarked to a Russell US Index[1].
There are two key dates to remember when it comes to Russell recon: “rank day” and the recon day itself.
This year, the rank day for Russell recon was April 30, 2025. Based on closing market data from US equity markets on this date, we ranked all eligible US companies by their total market capitalisation.
The largest 3,000 companies in this ranking became members of the Russell 3000® index. We then split the Russell 3000® index into two: the largest 1,000 constituents became members of the Russell 1000® index and the next largest 2,000 became members of the Russell 2000® index.
The actual reconstitution, which involves adjustments to the index constituents, took effect after the close of US equity markets on Friday, June 27, 2025. From the open of US equity markets on Monday, June 30, 2025, the Russell US Indexes’ membership, weights and performance reflected the new, updated index constituent lists.
A year in which the US giants got bigger
What stood out from this year’s Russell recon? First, the biggest stocks in the US equity market got even bigger. As at the 2025 rank day, the Russell 1000 index (which represents US large-cap stocks) had risen 11.9% since the 2024 rank day, while the Russell 2000 index (which represents US small caps) had risen only 0.9%. It’s been another year of large-cap dominance.
12-month performance to 2025 rank day”
Source: FTSE Russell, data as of April 30, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Please see the end for important legal disclosures.
Since recon, US small caps have regained some of their shine, however.
In July 2025, the Russell 2000 outperformed the Russell 1000 (2.68% vs. 2.59% in total return terms), with two style variants of the Russell 2000—the Russell 2000 Dynamic and the Russell 2000 Value indexes—doing better still (see the chart). The outperformance of Russell 2000 Dynamic stocks in July reflects how the small cap segment was driven by stocks characterized by higher leverage and volatility.
July 2025 Index Performance
Source: FTSE Russell. Data from June 30, 2025 to July 31, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Please see the end for important legal disclosures.
Apple and Microsoft jostled for top spot—but watch Nvidia
As at the 2025 Russell recon rank day, Apple was the largest US company in the Russell US indexes, with a total market capitalisation of over $3trn. Apple thereby replaced Microsoft as number one in the size rankings, retaking a position it had last held from 2021-2023.
But pay attention to Nvidia, ranked third-largest at end-April 2025 (the same place as it occupied in 2024). By end-June, based on float-adjusted market cap, Nvidia had become the largest stock in the Russell 3000 Index, followed by Microsoft and Apple. And by early July, Nvidia had become the first US (and global) company to achieve a $4trn market capitalisation.
Top ten stocks at 2025 Russell rank date
| Company | 2025 Rank by size | 2025 Total Market Cap | 2024 Rank by size | 2024 Total Market Cap | Change from 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 1 | 3,192.20 | 2 | 2,630.20 | 21.40% |
| Microsoft | 2 | 2,937.80 | 1 | 2,893.60 | 1.50% |
| Nvidia | 3 | 2,657.60 | 3 | 2,160.10 | 23.00% |
| Amazon.com | 4 | 1,957.10 | 5 | 1,820.50 | 7.50% |
| Alphabet | 5 | 1,927.00 | 4 | 2,011.60 | -4.20% |
| Meta | 6 | 1,385.90 | 6 | 1,091.10 | 27.00% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | 7 | 1,150.40 | 7 | 855.6 | 34.50% |
| Tesla | 8 | 908.8 | 10 | 584.5 | 55.50% |
| Broadcom | 9 | 905 | 9 | 602.6 | 50.20% |
| Eli Lilly | 10 | 852.2 | 8 | 742.4 | 14.80% |
*Market cap figures in USDbn
Source: FTSE Russell, as of April 30, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Please see the end for important legal disclosures.
All but one of the magnificent seven grew over the year
Based on rank day data, the companies known as the “Magnificent Seven” (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon.com, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla) had all increased in size since the 2024 recon, apart from Alphabet, whose total company market cap decreased 4.2% over the 12-month period. Tesla saw the largest year-on-year share price increase among this group: a gain of 55.5%.
The Russell 1000/Russell 2000 breakpoint held steady
We call the border between the Russell 1000 (large-cap) and the Russell 2000 (small-cap) indexes the “breakpoint”.
This year, the breakpoint was $4.6bn, unchanged from 2024 (even though the Russell 1000 outperformed the Russell 2000 by over 10% during the year).
It’s worth noting that stocks don’t move automatically from one index to the other at recon when crossing the breakpoint: to reduce potential index turnover, stocks only move between the Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 if their market capitalization moves more than 2.5% (based on market cap percentile) from the breakpoint.
However, you can see from the chart that the ±2.5% band around the breakpoint widened (in dollar terms) from a year earlier.
2024 and 2025 Russell US index market cap ranges
Source: FTSE Russell. Reflects banding. Data as of April 30, 2024 and April 30, 2025, respectively. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Please see the end for important legal disclosures.
The Russell 1000 is far more tech-oriented than the Russell 2000
Reflecting the recent stock market surge by US mega-cap tech companies, the Russell 1000 is far more oriented towards the Technology industry than the small-cap Russell 2000 (see the bar chart).
Together, the Technology and Consumer Discretionary industries represented nine of the largest ten stocks in the Russell 1000 index by weight as at the end of June 2025 (the exception was Berkshire Hathaway) and over 50% of the index.
Conversely, the Russell 2000 index had higher Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) Industry weightings at the end of June in Industrials, Financials, Health Care, Energy, Utilities and Basic Materials.
ICB Industry Breakdown
Source: FTSE Russell, data as of June 30, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Please see the end for important legal disclosures.
Recon is changing in 2026
Last but not least, please note that the Russell recon mechanism is changing in 2026, when we will move from the current annual reconstitution to a semi-annual recon frequency.
This shift doesn’t affect all the indexes in the Russell family, however. Reflecting the fact that style classifications change relatively often, we will rebalance the Russell US Style Indexes fully only once a year, in June. At the second (November) Russell index reconstitution, we will implement Style index changes only with respect to new additions and membership movements.
These upcoming changes to Russell recon reflect the responses to our 2023 market consultation and support our primary goals when managing this important index range: maintaining the accurate representation of the US equity market and ensuring the practical usability of the Russell US indexes.
1. Data as of December 31, 2024 as reported on May 15, 2025 by eVestment for active institutional funds, Morningstar for active retail mutual funds, insurance products, and ETFs. Passive assets directly collected by FTSE Russell are not included. AUM includes blended benchmarks and excludes futures and options. AUM data does not include active and passive assets not reported to a 3rd party source or FTSE Russell. For funds where the AUM was not reported as of December 31, 2024, the previous period AUM was used as an estimate. No assurances are given by FTSE Russell as to the accuracy of the data
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