By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – GameStop (NYSE:GME) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) were both in the red in Monday’s premarket trading as the dust settled over the rebalancing of the Russell indices.
Both stocks were down close to 1%. GameStop has moved to the Russell 1000 index while AMC stayed in the Russell 2000 benchmark. The changes in indices are effective today.
While the progress of the video game retailer to the larger index was a near certainty, there were still doubts over the inclusion of the multiplex chain owner.
GameStop, which is trying to reinvent itself as a digital-first distributor of games and related equipment, is the original meme stock. AMC, another stock challenged by changing consumer behavior patterns, joined it in a market frenzy that added billions of dollars in their market cap in the first half of the year. While AMC was badly hit by the closure of its theaters during the pandemic, its outlook has brightened as the U.S. has gradually lifted restrictions on public gatherings. Action movie "F9", starring Vin Diesel- and Charlize Theron, generated $70 million in box office sales at the weekend, the best movie debut since the start of the pandemic. F9 was made by Universal, a Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) subsidiary, collected $70 million over the weekend.
Investment managers and institutional investors use Russell indexes as benchmarks for active investment strategies. Approximately $10.6 trillion in assets are benchmarked against Russell’s U.S. indexes. Russell indexes are part of FTSE Russell, a leading global index provider.