Great Southern added to Russell indexes

Great Southern Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Springfield-based Great Southern Bank, has been added to the broad-market Russell 3000 Index and small-cap Russell 2000 index, officials said Monday.

The Russell 3000 Index measures the performance of the 3,000 largest U.S. companies based on total market capitalization. Membership is effective for one year and comes with automatic inclusion in the Russell 2000 index or the large-cap Russell 1,000 Index.

Great Southern Bancorp was added to the indexes after the stock market closed June 26.

"Our inclusion in the Russell indexes reflects well on our company's performance during this very difficult period in the financial services sector and the economy at large," Great Southern President and CEO Joseph Turner said in a news release.

The Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for passive and active investment strategies. According to the release, $4 trillion in assets are now benchmarked to the indexes.

Great Southern shares (Nasdaq: GSBC) closed Wednesday at $20.55 and were trading up 18 cents this morning at $20.73.