The US 500 index
The US 500 is a tradeable market from Capital.com, enabling you to take a position on the price of the US 500 stock index using CFDs.
The US 500 is an American stock market index. It tracks the performance of the top 500 companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States – like the Nasdaq Stock Market or the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). It is weighted by market capitalisation, which means that the constituents with a higher market cap carry a higher weighting percentage in the index and, therefore, have more influence over its performance.
You can practise trading the US 500 and other indices on a risk-free demo account.
The US 500 is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. It is often perceived as the best representation of the health of the US stock market, and is considered a bellwether for the overall US economy. Its weighting methodology and diverse constituency set it apart from other major American indices like the US Tech 100 or the US Wall Street 30.
The US 500’s constituent stocks are primarily chosen by capitalisation. However, other factors like liquidity, public float, sector classification, financial viability and trading history are also considered. The index is reviewed and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
While there are 500 companies included in the list, the US 500 index is composed of 505 common stocks. This difference in numbers occurs as a few index’s component firms issue more than one class of stock. For example, Alphabet Class A shares (GOOGL) and Alphabet Class C shares (GOOG) are both included in the US 500.
Some of the largest companies included in the US 500 index at the time of writing – which are of course subject to change – are Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (FB), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Visa (V), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Walmart (WMT), AT&T (T) and ExxonMobil (XOM).
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