S&P 500 Index

The S&P 500 is a stock market index that measures the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The 10 largest companies in the index account for 26% of the market capitalization of the index. The index value is updated every 15 seconds, or 1,559 times per trading day.

About S&P 500 Index in brief

Summary S&P 500 IndexThe S&P 500 is a stock market index that measures the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The 10 largest companies in the index account for 26% of the market capitalization of the index. The index value is updated every 15 seconds, or 1,559 times per trading day. It is one of the factors in computation of the Conference Board Leading Economic Index, used to forecast the direction of the economy. The components that have increased their dividends in 25 consecutive years are known as the S & P 500 Dividend Aristocrats. The easiest way to invest in the S&p 500 is to buy an index fund, either a mutual fund or an exchange-traded fund that replicates, before fees and expenses, the index by holding the same stocks as the index, in the same proportions. In May 2019, the CME started trading a Micro E-mini futures contract that is one tenth the size of the S andP E-Mini contract, i.e. 150 the size the full-sized contract. The Chicago Board Options Exchange offers options on the index as well as on S &P 500 index ETFs, inverseETFs, and leveraged ETFs. Direxion offers leveragedETFs that attempt to produce 3x the daily result of either investing in or shorting the SandP 500.

The S& P 500 index is maintained by S& p Dow Jones Indices, a joint venture majority-owned by S & p Global. The Index is associated with many ticker symbols, including: ^GSPC, INX, and USD SPX, depending on market or website. Ticker symbols are SP for the full size contract and ES for the E- mini S&N contract. In September 1997, CME Group began trading futures contracts that track the index and trade on the exchange floor in an open outcry auction, or on CME’s Globex platform, and are the exchange’s most popular product. Like other public-weighted indices, the Index is managed by a public-adjusted floatings managed by State Street Corporation and issued by The Vanguard Group. For a list of the components of theIndex, see List of S&S 500 companies. For an index of the Index’s components, see the List of Index Components. For more information on how to buy index funds, visit The Vanguard group’s Investor’s Guide to Index Funds and iShares’ Investor’s guide to Indexes and Exchange-Traded Funds (ITF). For more about the index’s methodology, visit the Investor’sguide to theIndexes and Investments (ISI) section of the ISI.