S&P 500
The S&P 500[1][2][3], an abbreviation for Standard & Poor's 500, is a stock index comprised of 500 large companies traded on United States stock markets. It is not necessarily the 500 largest companies, as there is a selection process that considers the track record and future prospects of a company. Often the S&P 500 is cited as a measure of how the stock market is doing.
Unlike the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P500 is weighted by market capitalization, such that the larger "cap" stocks have a greater influence over the index than the smaller cap stocks do.
A notable exclusion from the S&P 500 was Tesla Motors (TSLA) on Sept. 4, 2020 (after the markets closed), probably because TSLA was considered to be so vastly overpriced that a decline in its price could have weighted down the entire S&P 500. TSLA was subsequently accepted into the S&P 500 index.
As of March 2022, the weighting in the SPY ETF was:[4]
- Apple Inc. (AAPL) 7.07%
- Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) 6.04%
- Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 3.73%
- Tesla Inc. (TSLA) 2.36%
- Alphabet Inc. — Class A (GOOGL) 2.18%
- Alphabet Inc. — Class C (GOOG) 2.03%
- NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) 1.78%
- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. — Class B (BRK.B) 1.69%
- Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook) — Class A (FB) 1.34%
- UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) 1.25%
