History of S&P 500 (thread)

1860: Henry Poor founds Poor's Publishing - focused on railroad industry

1906: Standard Statistics Bureau founded - focused on rating mortgage bonds

1926: Standard Statistics launches 90-stock index

1941: Poor's Publishing & Standard Statistics Merge - form Standard & Poor's

1957: Index expanded to 500 companies. Renamed S&P 500 - first computer-generated stock index

1966: McGraw-Hill acquires S&P

1973: $WFC & $BAC launch Institutional funds that track the S&P 500

1976: Vanguard launches S&P 500 mutual fund for retail investors

1982: Index closes above 100 first time

1987: Index drops 20.5% in a single day, a record

1993: $STT launches $SPY, first S&P 500 ETF

1997: $CME launches S&P 500 e-mini future contracts

1998: Index Closes above 1,000 for the first time

2005: Index becomes public float-adjusted capitalization weighting

2012: Joint venture between S&P and Dow Jones indices

2014: Index closes above 2,000 for the first time

2019: Closes above 3,000 for first time

Current index price: 3,499.50

Current heat map of S&P 500: