Mad Money Machine

Russell Indexes the Entire Globe

Russell Investment Group, of Russell 2000 index fame, announced yesterday the creation of several global indices including THE Global index. It will contain 10,000 stocks and will cover 98% of the equity investing universe.

I looked around to see if I could find out what the VALUE of this index is currently, but no joy. I searched MSN, finance.yahoo, Google, and even my broker without success. Lots of other Russell indices, but not the Global index.

I’m eager to follow this index as it seems like it could be the ULTIMATE diversification play. An article in the 18 December 2006 issue of Business week was entitled, “In Search of a Global Index Fund” and said that sometime in the next year or two, Wall Street’s index mavens may well come up with the Holy Grail of investing — a single-purchase, low-cost, indexed global portfolio. They referred to the MSCI Global Capital Markets index as a possible foundation for a fund to track. Now there is a new candidate.

I like this idea. I think comparing performance to a portfolio like the S&P 500 index is dumb. We should be much more diversified than that in our portfolios so why compare it to an index that is not as diversified?

I can’t wait to put the Russell Global index in my portfolio tracking tools. Where is it?