IWM: iShares Russell 2000 ETF

What does IWM hold?#

This fund holds stocks of about 2,000 small US companies. Small company stocks can grow faster than big ones, but their prices often move up and down more. One share gives you a small piece of many companies at once.

It tracks the Russell 2000 Index. It had 1,983 holdings as of October 15, 2026, according to iShares (BlackRock).

What is the IWM expense ratio?#

IWM charges 0.19% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.19% fee comes to about $19 a year.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

How has IWM done since 2000?#

From May 2000 to October 2026, IWM returned about 8.4% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $83,198 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

Prices through October 16, 2026. Figures use daily closing prices adjusted for splits, with dividends reinvested. They do not include taxes or the cost of buying and selling. Past results do not tell you what will happen next.

IWM returns by year#

What was IWM’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. IWM’s worst fall was −58.6%, from July 13, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on February 8, 2011.

The chart shows how far below its last high the fund was on each day. Big drops are normal for some funds. They matter because selling during a drop locks in the loss.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold IWM?#

9 classic strategies hold IWM at least some of the time. Each is a set of written rules you can open, test and copy.

• Hybrid Asset Allocation (HAA), by Wouter Keller and JW Keuning, 2023
• Bold Asset Allocation (BAA), by Wouter Keller, 2022
• Defensive Asset Allocation (DAA), by Wouter Keller and JW Keuning, 2018
• Protective Asset Allocation (PAA), by Wouter Keller and JW Keuning, 2016
• Vigilant Asset Allocation G12 (VAA-G12), by Wouter Keller and JW Keuning, 2017
• GTAA 13: Faber’s 13-asset tactical allocation, by Mebane Faber, 2013
• GTAA Aggressive 3 (Faber GTAA AGG3), by Mebane Faber, 2013
• GTAA Aggressive 6 (Faber GTAA AGG6), by Mebane Faber, 2013
• US Risk Parity Trend-Following (The Trend is Our Friend), by Andrew Clare, James Seaton, Peter N. Smith, and Stephen Thomas, 2016

How does IWM compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for IWM:

• SCHA: Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF, 0.03% a year
• VB: Vanguard Morningstar Small-Cap ETF, 0.03% a year
• IJR: iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF, 0.06% a year
• VBR: Vanguard Morningstar Small-Cap Value ETF, 0.05% a year

See all 8 IWM alternatives, compared on the same dates as IWM.

Test IWM in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add IWM, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for IWM. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns.

Fund facts come from iShares (BlackRock). We checked them on October 16, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.