The standard & Poor's 500 index..what is this and what do they do?
2006-07-31 12:23:07 · 3 answers · asked by Sexxssay? 4 in Business & Finance ➔ Investing
The Standard & Poors company evaluates publically held companies and rates them. The S&P 500 is a stock index of the 500 "best" larger companies.
These are not the 500 largest; some are mid sized companies. It's also true that some are not exactly the "best" right now & they are given a year or two of poor performance before being dropped from the index.
It is also important to know that the index is market cap weighted. A company with 10 billion of stock value affects the index 10 time more strongly than a company with 1 billion of stock value.
The S&P 500 is generally considered to be one of the better measures of the whole "market" performance. Is the market up or down today? Look at the S&P 500!
The S&P has other indexes too. The S&P 600 is a small company index & it is sometimes sub-divided into "value" and "growth" sub-indexes.
2006-08-01 15:53:40 · answer #1 · answered by Tom H 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is an Index of the 500 biggest companies in America, it gives an overall view of American business strength
2006-07-31 12:27:08 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It measures the price of 500 US companies. It approximates the overall stock market.
2006-07-31 14:10:20 · answer #3 · answered by STEVEN F 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋