IWO offers growth exposure to a well-known index in the small-cap space. Its underlying index is one of two traditional style indexes that divides the Russell 2000 Index into growth and value subsets using just two growth factors: 2-year growth forecasts and 5-year historical sales-per-share growth. Securities with higher price-to-book ratios and higher forecasted growth relative to those of the Russell 2000 Index contains the underlying index. Compared to its segment benchmark (and some of its peers), IWO prefers smaller firms, including some micro-caps. The index is reconstituted annually to ensure larger stocks do not distort the performance of the small-cap growth market.
