S&P 500 Index Today - Price Chart

S&P 500 Stocks Today

Being the largest index in the world and the United States, the S&P companies lead the economy as well as reflect the market behavior. The total number of stock in the index is 505 (with a different class of shares) but the surprising thing is that the top 10 companies' weight is more than 30% of the entire index.

Stock	Price	Marketcap	Sector	Open	High	Low	Close	Volume	52 Week Range
Apple Inc. AAPL	$169.3	2.6T		$169.9	$171.3	$169.2	$169.9	44,456,222
Microsoft Corporation MSFT	$406.3	3.0T		$412.4	$413.0	$405.8	$399.0	29,613,265
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN	$179.6	1.9T		$177.7	$180.8	$176.1	$173.7	41,954,611
Alphabet Inc. GOOGL	$172.0	2.1T		$174.4	$174.7	$169.7	$156.0	64,533,393
Alphabet Inc. GOOG	$173.7	2.1T		$175.9	$176.4	$171.4	$158.0	55,109,185
Tesla, Inc. TSLA	$168.3	536.7B		$169.1	$172.1	$166.4	$170.2	108,830,097
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. New BRK-B	$402.1	869.3B		$403.9	$404.8	$401.4	$404.9	2,963,387
Johnson & Johnson JNJ	$146.1	352.2B		$146.7	$147.2	$146.0	$146.8	6,134,278
UnitedHealth Group Incorporated UNH	$495.4	455.8B		$492.0	$497.2	$491.4	$493.9	2,608,553
NVIDIA Corporation NVDA	$877.4	2.2T		$839.0	$883.3	$833.9	$826.3	54,608,830

What is the S&P 500?

The S&P 500 (Standard & Poor's) is the biggest index in the United States that indicates the performance of the top 500 large-cap stocks listed on NYSE or NASDAQ. S&P 500 holds $42.368 trillion market capitalization, which is more than 75% of the total total U.S. stock market capitalization comprising 11 different leading sectors. (Update: 04/01/2022)

All the 500 Companies are selected by the U.S. Index Committee based on many factors like - Market Cap, Revenue, Liquidity, Sector, Shares in the Public, Performance, Location, and Annual Trade Value, etc. For that reason, the S&P 500 is the face of the entire American market which the investor use as a benchmark so that they can compare other investment instruments at a standard level.

How the S&P 500 Works?

The Standard & Poor's 500 work on the weighted market capitalization method which means that a company with a high market cap has a high ranking in the index. The calculation of companies' weightage is very simple, taking each company's market cap and dividing it by the total market cap of the S&P 500 index. 

S&P 500 vs. Other Index

The Standard & Poors index represents the top 500 large-cap stocks based on weighed market capitalization but the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) also known as the Dow 30 Stocks is focused on thirty blue chip publicly traded stocks which are price-weighted.

The value of the Dow reflecting the sum of the share price of the 30 stocks adjusted by dividend or stock split and all companies ranking changes on their importance, whereas S&P consists of stocks selected by committee only.

The S&P has all types of sector stock which is not considered in Nasdaq Index because Nasdaq-100 works on the updated market cap method which includes 100 non-financial large-cap companies which are listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

Check - How Vix Effect The S&P 500

S&P 500 Important Historical Events

S&P 500 Performance

The index has generated around 10%-11% annual average returns in the last 93 years (1926-2019). So If you had invested $100 in the S&P 500 Index  at the beginning of 1970, it would have grown to nearly $17,911.95  by the end of 2019 (with dividend)

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How to Invest In S&P 500

If you want to start investing, then the S&P 500 is a good option as you can focus on large-cap & blue-chip stock to get a stable return. But as we know, we can't invest directly in an index, and to invest in S&P 500, you have to buy ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) or Index funds. Check the below post to know about the best S&P 500 ETFs or Index Funds:

You can follow below process to buy S&P 500 ETFs: