Russell Investments has restocked the Russell Global Index with 1,242 new companies from 62 countries.

The U.S. leads the way with 279 additions while India accounted for 93 additions. Canada added 89 new constituents, which ties it for third spot with Taiwan. Australia, China, Britain, South Korea, Russia and Brazil round out the top 10.

“The annual reconstitution process is an essential part of providing truly representative equity benchmarks for investors,” said Stephen Wood, senior portfolio strategist for Russell. “This process captures the changing fortunes of stocks worldwide and recalibrates the indices to reflect those changes. This is important for investors who want to better gauge the performance of their stock portfolios or retirement plans.”

The list of additions also extends the reach of the Russell Global Index to include companies from five additional emerging markets for the first time: Kazakhstan, Qatar, Tunisia, Ukraine and Vietnam.

Addition to the Russell Global Index means automatic inclusion into several sub-component indices. For example, a small-cap stock in Vietnam also is added to the Russell Emerging Markets Index, Russell Asia Index, Russell Asia Pacific Index and Russell Global Small Cap Index, among others, as well as the related value or growth style indices.

On a sector basis, this year’s list of additions is led by 295 stocks in the materials and processing sector, followed by 220 financial services stocks and 162 consumer discretionary firms. The new members include 47 initial public offerings that came to market during the second quarter, including eight in China and five in India.

The index covers 98% of the investible global market and includes more than 10,000 securities in 70 countries, and currently has a median market capitalization of US$32 billion, according to Russell.