Who Says Indexes Are not Performance Chasers?

This really is beginning to remind me of the late 90s and technology when every index was in a hurry to stuff itself with tech stocks. Fresh off two of our holdings (natural gas and coal) being added to the S&P 500 [Jun 13: Cabot Oil & Gas (COG) and Massey Energy (MEE) Added to S&P 500] the Russell 1000 added "net" 8 energy companies, including 3 of our holdings - Alpha Natural Resources (ANR), Atwood Oceanics (ATW), and newly minted position Encore Acquisition (EAC). Another company Petrohawk Energy (HK) is one of the hottest stocks in the market as well. The Russell 1000, due to median size of companies we own, is what we mostly measure ourself against.

• Ten companies in the "other energy" sector, which encompasses energy companies not considered integrated oil companies, are being to be added to the Russell 1000 in this year's reconstitution of the large-stock index, while 2 in the sector are being removed.
• Alpha Natural Resources., Atwood Oceanics Inc., Encore Acquisition Co., Exterran Holdings Inc., Hercules Offshore Inc., Mariner Energy Inc., Oil States International Inc., Petrohawk Energy Corp. and Whiting Petroleum Corp. were added to the Russell 1000, all moving up from the small-stock Russell 2000.
• Cheniere Energy Inc. and Western Refining Inc. were removed from the large-cap index and moved to the Russell 2000.
• Tacoma, Wash.-based Russell Investments realigns the Russell 3000 index once per year, tracking what it maintains is 99 percent of the U.S. equity market. That index is then broken down to 26 smaller indexes, including the widely watched Russell 1000 index of large capitalization stocks.

Disclosure: Long Alpha Natural Resources, Atwood Oceanics, Encore Acquisition, Massey Energy, Cabot Oil & Gas in fund; long Alpha Natural Resources in personal account