S&P 500 Index Shares

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is a capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks from a broad range of industries. The component stocks are weighted according to the total market value of their outstanding shares. The impact of a component's price change is proportional to the issue's total market value, which is the share price times the number of shares outstanding. These are summed for all 500 stocks and divided by a predetermined base value. The base value for the S&P 500 Index is adjusted to reflect changes in capitalization resulting from mergers, acquisitions, stock rights, substitutions, etc.

All of the stocks in the index are those of large publicly held companies and trade on the two largest US stock markets, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 is the most widely watched index of large-cap US stocks. It is considered to be a bellwether for the US economy and is a component of the Index of Leading Indicators. It is often quoted using the symbol SPX or INX, and may be prefixed with a caret (^) or with a dollar sign ($).

The relatively compact units of ETFs represent an opportunity for the smaller investor to achieve a performance close to the S&P 500 Index (minus fees and expenses). They trade like any other stock on the American Stock Exchange, so they can be bought on margin, sold short, or held for the long term. Both the SPDRs and the iShares have a management expense ratio of under 0.1% a year, making them an efficient proxy for the underlying index.

S&P 500 Index iShares & ETFs
With ETFs based on broad-market, sector and international indexes, you have a wide range of investment opportunities. You have the ability to establish long-term investments in the market performance of the leading companies in the leading industries in the United States, or you can custom tailor asset allocations using a range of ETFs to fit your particular investment needs or goals. You can hold ETFs based on a broad-market index as a core investment, for example, then use additional ETFs to increase your exposure in sector and/or international index performance.

S&P 500 Index SPDRs Description
The SPDR Trust Series I is a pooled investment designed to provide investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the S&P 500 Index. iShares S&P 500 Index Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the S&P 500 Index . There is no assurance that the performance of the S&P 500 Index can be fully matched.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) & iShares

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