S&P 500
The 500 largest US companies, weighted by size. The default benchmark of long-term investing.
What it tracks
A committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices selects the constituents. To enter the , a company must be US-domiciled, have a of at least roughly $20 billion, be profitable over the latest four quarters, and trade enough shares to be . The index is weighted by free-float market capitalization, bigger companies count more. Apple at ~7% of the index moves it almost ten times more than a 0.7% holding does. The committee adds and removes names a few times a year as companies grow, shrink, merge or get acquired, which is why the count drifts slightly above or below 500.
Geographic exposure
Where in the world the index is invested, by domicile of listed company. For global indices this varies significantly between developed and emerging markets.
The S&P 500 is 100% US-listed companies by domicile. However, roughly 40% of the revenues of its constituents are earned outside the United States, so it carries more international economic exposure than it appears on paper.
Approximate end-2025 figures
Historical performance
Annual total returns from 2001 onward, including reinvested . Move the slider to see what a different starting amount would have become, and switch to the bar view to see how uneven the path actually was.
Total return, dividends reinvested, before fees and taxes. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Returns by decade
Average annualised return for each full decade. This view makes it obvious that the path is anything but smooth, the 2000s were a lost decade for US equities, erasing all gains from the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis.
* 2020s is partial (2020–2025). All figures are approximate total return .
Sector breakdown
How the index splits across the eleven standard GICS sectors. The bigger the bar, the larger the weight in the index.
Approximate end-2025 figures
Top 10 holdings
The largest names in the index by weight. Together they make up a meaningful share of the whole, pay attention to concentration.
| # | Company | Ticker | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apple | AAPL | 7.1% |
| 2 | Microsoft | MSFT | 6.6% |
| 3 | Nvidia | NVDA | 6.5% |
| 4 | Amazon | AMZN | 3.9% |
| 5 | Alphabet (Google) | GOOGL | 3.8% |
| 6 | Meta Platforms | META | 2.6% |
| 7 | Tesla | TSLA | 2.0% |
| 8 | Berkshire Hathaway | BRK.B | 1.8% |
| 9 | Broadcom | AVGO | 1.7% |
| 10 | JPMorgan Chase | JPM | 1.4% |
ETFs that track it
The funds most long-term investors use to own this index. Lower are almost always better. Domicile matters for , UCITS funds are domiciled in Ireland (IE) for European investors, US-domiciled (US) for American ones.
| Ticker | Fund name | Provider | Domicile | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VOO | Vanguard S&P 500 ETF | Vanguard | US | Dist | 0.03% |
| IVV | iShares Core S&P 500 ETF | BlackRock | US | Dist | 0.03% |
| SPY | SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust | State Street | US | Dist | 0.09% |
| CSPX | iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF | BlackRock | IE | Acc | 0.07% |
| VUAA | Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF (Acc) | Vanguard | IE | Acc | 0.07% |
| VUSA | Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF (Dist) | Vanguard | IE | Dist | 0.07% |
Accumulating, are automatically reinvested inside the fund. You don't receive cash but the share price grows. Simpler for long-term and more tax-efficient in many European countries.
Distributing, are paid out to you as cash. You decide what to do with them, but you're also responsible for declaring and paying on each distribution. Common preference for investors who want regular income.
A bit of history
Standard & Poor's introduced the index in its current form on March 4, 1957. Before that the firm had been publishing smaller stock indices since the 1920s, but the 500-company version is the one that became synonymous with "the US stock market". Over the next seven decades it survived the inflation of the 1970s, Black Monday (1987), the dot-com (2000-2002), the global financial crisis (2008-2009), the COVID-19 (2020), and the 2022 rate-hike , and ended each of those cycles at a higher level than where it started. Long-run total return has hovered around 10% per year before inflation since 1928.
- + Instant across 500 of the largest companies in the world.
- + Rock-bottom , most trackers charge 0.03% to 0.10% per year.
- + Extreme . SPY alone trades tens of billions of dollars per day.
- + Long-run total return of roughly 10% per year before inflation since 1928.
- + Notoriously hard to beat. Most active US-equity managers underperform it.
- − Single-country exposure, 100% United States. No geographic .
- − Heavy tech weighting (~31%) and a top-10 that adds up to ~37% of the index.
- − Denominated in US dollars. Non-USD investors carry an extra layer of .
- − Has lost more than 50% at least three times since 1970.
- − Past returns aren't a contract, the next 10 years are not the previous 10.
All figures are approximate end-2025 values for educational illustration. Index composition, weights, holdings and returns change constantly. Nothing here is financial advice or a recommendation.