Russell Investments has added 110 Canadian stocks to the Russell Global Index as part of an annual process to maintain the most accurate equity benchmarks.

As a result, the Russell Global Index now includes 475 Canadian stocks that represent more than US$1.55 trillion in market capitalization. This figure increased 22% from US$1.27 trillion at this time last year.

Canada now ranks as the fourth largest in terms of the number of stocks in the index, following only the United States, Japan and India.

“The Canadian market has emerged from the global recession in relatively robust shape,” says Steve Wood, chief market strategist for Russell Investments. “The amount of market activity in Canada captured and now reflected by our annual index reconstitution process is significant.”

The list of additions to the global Index is available here.

The materials & processing sector accounted for 44 of the 110 Canadian stocks added to the global index, or 40%.

Three of the 45 IPOs added to the Russell Global Index for the second quarter are based in Canada: Athabasca Oil Sands, Extorre Gold Mines and Transglobe Apartment Real Estate Investment Trust.

The current sector weights for the Canadian component of the Russell Global Index are financial services (30.8%), materials & processing (23.6%), energy (25.1%), producer durables (5.6%), consumer discretionary (4.2%), utilities (4.2%), technology (3.5%), consumer staples (2.7%) and health care (0.5%).

Russell’s index reconstitution process is followed closely by many investors because $3.9 trillion in assets are benchmarked against them, and they account for an industry-leading 64% of institutional benchmarked products, as of Dec.31, 2009.

Tacoma, Wash.-based Russell Investment Group is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

IE