S&P 500 (SPX)

S&P 500 is a stock market index made up of 500 large-cap companies based out of the U.S. People use it to get an idea of how the overall market is doing.

It stands for “Standard & Poor’s 500.” The number 500 refers to the count of companies that are present in the index.

SPX is the ticker symbol for the S&P 500 Index. This ticker is what you’ll often see on financial news tickers and trading platforms.

The S&P 500 uses market-cap weighting, which means bigger companies like Apple or Microsoft have more influence on the index than smaller ones. The total market values of all 500 companies are adjusted and divided by a set number (the divisor) to keep the index consistent when stocks split or companies change.

The S&P 500 index is managed by S&P Dow Jones Indices, which is part of S&P Global. No one “owns” the stocks that are inside this index, it’s simply a curated list of a hypothetical stock portfolio that follows a set methodology.

Yes, Indians can invest in the S&P 500 by various methods like using an international trading account to buy U.S. listed ETFs, or invest through Indian mutual funds that track the index.

While the S&P 500 index is not directly tradable, you can invest in it through ETFs like SPY, VOO or IVV, or via S&P 500 index mutual funds. You can use INDmoney to invest in the S&P 500.

Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Alphabet(Google) usually sit at the top because of their huge market capitalisations.

The index itself doesn’t pay dividends, but many of its constituent companies do. ETFs that track the index pass those dividends on to the investors.

Historically, long-term investors have seen solid returns through S&P 500, but it’s still subject to market ups and downs. Patience and time in the market have been the key.

India’s closest equivalent is the Nifty 500, which tracks 500 major companies on the NSE.