What Is the S&P 500 Index?

The S&P 500 or Standard & Poor's 500 Index is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies. The index is broadly considered as the best gauge of large-cap U.S. equities.

Other common U.S. stock market benchmarks include the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Dow 30 and the Russell 2000 Index, which represents the small-cap index.

Sectors of the S&P 500

Health Care – 15.8 percent
Financials – 13.7 percent
Consumer Discretionary – 9.9 percent
Communications Services – 9.9 percent
Industrials – 9.4 percent
Consumer Staples – 7.4 percent
Energy – 5.4 percent
Utilities – 3.1 percent
Real Estate – 2.9 percent
Materials - 2.6 percent

History of the S&P 500

Standard & Poor's, a company that provides financial information and analysis, was founded in 1860 by Henry Varnum Poor. The Composite Index, as the S&P 500 was first called when it started its first stock index in 1923, began tracking a small number of stocks. Three years later in 1926, the Composite Index expanded to 90 , and then in 1957 it grew to its current 500. In 1941, Poor's Publishing (Henry Varnum Poor's original company) merged with Standard Statistics (founded in 1906 as the Standard Statistics Bureau) and therein assumed the name Standard and Poor's Corporation.

Significant Events in the History of the S&P 500

On 12, August 1982, the index closed at 102.42. The following represents the ups and downs of the period year 2000 to date.

On 24, March 2000, the index touched an intraday high of 1,552.87, at the top of the dot-com bubble a high not to be passed for the following seven years. By 10, October 2002, the index had dropped to 768.83, a decline of nearly 50%, during the stock market downturn of 2002, before finally turning back up.

On 30 May 2007, the S&P 500 closed at 1,530.23, to set its first all-time closing high in more than seven years. Although the index reached a new all-time intraday high on October 11, 2007, at 1,576.09, following a record close of 1,565.15 on October 9, the index finished 2007 at 1,468.36 points just below its 1999 annual close. Less than a month later, it fell to 1,400, and would not see comparable levels again for five years.

Assets and Currencies Influencing Price Action of SP500

At the close of each day, the Ultronics System Corp calculates the market capitalization of companies in the S&P 500. Financial platforms divide the total float-adjusted market cap of the S&P 500 by the proprietary index divisor. Resulting into the closing index value of the stocks. Therefore, this only ensures that only companies with high market capitalization make it to the top.

When considering price perfomance of the S&P 500, factors to consider include earnings per share, major news involving corporations listed on the exchange, revenue, major political events, economic data and changes in interest rates.

Also the share price rises whenever a company is enlisted to the S&P 500 primarily due to the fact there has to be a present mutual fund for buying the stock.

US-China trade talks and wars also have an intensifying effect on the S&P 500. This effect was mostly apparent during Trump’s rule upon a potential resolution towards the trade wars. And nearing an agreement announcement, a huge effect was across the stock market.

It is also worth to look at price movements of bonds. Stocks and bonds can be volatile at times but note they tend to move in the opposite direction. Bonds come in different types from Coroporate, Municipal and Treasury Bonds. And have the effect of even affecting mortgage interest rates, real estate prices and so on. It goes without saying they have an easy impact on the S&P 500 index.

S&P 500 Contract Size

Lot Size:10
Minimum Contract: 0.1
Maximum Contract: 5
Price Minimum Increment: 0.1
Contract Size Minimum Increment 0.1
Pip vaue: 0.01