Everyone talks about the “S&P 500”

But what is it?

How do you buy some of it?

Let me explain!

Sit back, relax, and enjoy

(thread)

The S&P 500 is a stock market index

Made up of 500 (hence the name) large-cap companies

The 500 companies account for about 80% of the American equity market by capitalization

(Actually, there are 505 stocks since it includes two share classes of stock from 5 companies)

Here are some of the stocks listed on the S&P 500... it would be a lot of stocks to list them all, but I’ll list a few of the more popular ones!

Remember, there are technically 505, but 5 come from two sets of share classes... so it’s 500 companies!!

$ABBV
$AFL
$ALK
$MO
$AMZN
$AAPL
$T
$CAT
$CVX
$KO
$COST
$DPZ
$HSY
$HD
$KSU
$MA
$NFLX
$PG
$O
$WMT
$XRX

That’s a list of 20... of the 500 total companies on the index

If you want to see the full index, I’d recommend going to Wikipedia (sorry to my high school English teacher lol)

Or just google “list of companies on S&P 500”!!

Notice how some of these companies pay dividends

$MMM
$JNJ
$T
$O

But also some of these companies don’t

$AMZN
$FB
$NFLX
$GOOG

And no, $TSLA is not currently on the S&P 500

What if you don’t want to pick your stocks, but you want to invest in the S&P 500?

Here are some popular index funds that mimic the S&P 500!!

$SPY
$VOO
$IVV
$FXAIX
$SWPPX
$VFINX

So you know the companies, you know some index funds

BUT

How does the S&P 500 perform?

According to CNBC, the average annualized return of the S&P 500 index over the past 90 years is 9.8%

That’s a really solid average return

Remember, that is average return YoY

Some years it returned 12%

Some years it returned -3%

Some years it returned 20%

Some years it returned -10%

That is why TIME IN the market is important

Ride the down years out and DON’T SELL

Also remember that historical performance does not guarantee future performance

But, generally speaking, the S&P 500 goes up

It covers majority of the stock market, so when the overall stock market does good, so does the S&P 500

Personally, majority of my dividend portfolio is made up of S&P 500 stocks

HOWEVER

Just because a stock is listed on the S&P 500 doesn’t mean it is a good investment

Always, always, always do your research before buying stocks!!

*this thread is not investing advice

That’s all I have today

Class is dismissed

I hope you enjoyed this thread and learned more about one of the most popular index’s for the stock market!!

If you are wanting to learn more about investing or dividends, send me a DM!

Thanks

@DecadeInvestor