Small-Cap Winners, Week of Oct. 18-22

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Russell 2000 index edged up on Friday, allowing the small-cap benchmark to continue to pad its lead over the Dow Jones Industrial Average so far in 2010.

October has been a stellar month for both indices but the Russell has outpaced the Dow, posting a gain of 4.1% to date vs. the blue-chip index's advance of 3.2%.

On Friday, the Russell 2000 added 5.31 points, or 0.76%, to finish at 703.43. The Dow couldn't keep pace as it fell for the first time in three sessions, losing 14 points, or 0.1%, to close at 11,133.

Those performances bring year-to-date returns to 13.6% for the Russell vs. the Dow's gain of 6.8% in 2010.

The Russell 2000 is a market capitalization-weighted index constructed by Russell Investments, which says its Russell 3000 index represents 99% of U.S. equities. The Russell 1000 index includes the 1000 biggest companies, by market cap, and the Russell 2000 holds the next 2000 companies.

Click here for a complete list of the Russell 2000's components. The index's top 5 weighted components as of Sept. 30 were Tibco Software (TIBX), Riverbed Technology (RVBD), Verifone Systems (PAY), Rackspace Hosting (RAX), and Nordson Corp. (NDSN).

The Russell indexes exclude any companies that trade over-the-counter or on the Pink Sheets, as well as companies whose shares trade for less than $1 each. For further information on the methodology and maintenance of the indexes, click here.

Here's a list of the top five performers in the Russell 2000 in the past week with trailing three-month daily average volume of at least 50,000.

1 2 3 4 5 6 Next › Last »