The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index is designed to represent all U.S.-headquartered equity securities that have readily available prices. The Dow Jones Wilshire 4500 Completion Index is a subset of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index and excludes components of the S&P 500.

Membership

To be included in the indexes, an issue must be all of the following:

  • An equity issue: a common stock, REIT or limited partnership.
  • A security that has its primary market listing in the U.S.

Bulletin board will not be added to the indexes because it is assumed that they do not have consistently "readily" available prices.

The company's primary issue for index valuation is determined based on the following criteria:

  • Market capitalization
  • Trading volume
  • Institutional holdings
  • Conversion rules (for companies with multiple share classes)

Weighting

The indexes are weighted by both full market capitalization and float-adjusted market capitalization.

Share Treatment and Float Adjustment

The following rules explain the treatment of shares and the application of float factors in the float-adjusted versions of the indexes:

  • Shares outstanding for multiple classes of stock are combined into the primary issue's shares outstanding to reflect the company's total market capitalization.
  • Float adjustments are based on block ownership of each class of stock, and then are combined to determine total float for a company's combined shares.
  • Float-adjustment factors will be implemented only if the blocked shares are greater than 5% of the company's total shares outstanding.

Adjustments and Maintenance

Periodic and ongoing reviews of the index composition and shares are conducted based on the following rules:

  • Stock additions and deletions are made after the close of trading on the third Friday of each month. The additions include all new noncomponent companies that met inclusion standards as of the close of trading on the second Friday of that month, whether from IPOs or new exchange listing.
  • An issue that becomes a pink sheet or otherwise stops trading for ten consecutive days will be removed from the indexes at the next monthly review. It will be removed at its latest quoted value, or at $0.01 if no recent quoted value is available. Until the monthly review, the issue will remain in the indexes at its last exchange-traded price.
  • Additions and deletions are pre-announced by the 2nd day prior to the implementation date.
  • An issue that fails index inclusion guidelines is removed from the indexes as soon as prudently possible.
  • Periodic shares updates are made quarterly after the close of trading on the third Friday of March, June, September and December. The changes become effective at the opening of trading on the next business day.
  • If the cumulative impact of corporate actions during the period between quarterly shares updates changes a company's floatadjusted shares outstanding by 10% or more, the company's shares and float factor will be updated as soon as prudently possible. Share and float changes based on corporate actions will be implemented using standard Dow Jones Indexes procedures.
  • Except to account for stock splits and reverse splits, shares and float factors will not be adjusted for bulletin board and pink sheet stocks until they are returned to exchange listings. Companies that are re-listed as of the close of trading on the second Friday of each month will have their shares and float adjustments made at the same time as the monthly index adds and deletions, after the close of trading on the third Friday of each month.