AWT News Update: June 17, 2016

As is typical with Fridays after big Apple events, today was a very slow news day. But we have a few stories for you to listen to in less than three minutes:

• The “Apps for Earth” campaign that Apple and the World Wildlife Fund ran back in April made a tidy sum for the conservation group
• Have the urge for luxury leather Apple Watch bands? Coach has released its bands to its online and brick-and-mortar retail outlets
• Politico is trying a unique way to send out breaking news and poll results on the impending “Brexit” vote – using Apple’s Wallet app

The text version of the podcast is below; otherwise, click the play button to listen.

The Russell Indexes are a family of global equity indices that allow investors to track the performance of distinct market segments worldwide. Many investors use mutual funds or exchange-traded funds based on the Russell Indexes as a way of gaining exposure to certain portions of the U.S. stock market. For example, the Russell 3000 index includes the 3,000 largest US companies according to market capitalization.

Because Apple has been aggressively buying back and retiring its stock, outstanding shares have dropped to less than 5.5 billion from 5.8 billion in late June 2015, when the Russell indexes were last recalibrated, according to Reuters data. Apple’s weighting in the Russell 1000 will roughly fall to 2.52% from 2.77 percent, Credit Suisse said. The decline is due to the combination of fewer shares outstanding and Apple’s smaller part of the index’s capitalization.

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