Knowledge Base
S&P 500 investing strategies, index funds, ETFs, market performance data, and the trading approaches that shape allocation decisions.
45 articles in this category — page 2 of 4
The S&P 500 Index II Securities Lending Series Fund is an institutional commingled fund managed by State Street Global Advisors that tracks the S&P 500 while generating incremental income by lending portfolio securities to short sellers and other borrowers. It is not a retail product. Access typical
The S&P 500's worst 10-year price return on record ran from January 2000 through December 2009: a cumulative decline of roughly 24%, with the index closing near 1,469 at the end of 1999 and near 1,115 at the end of 2009, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) historical data. On a tot
S&P 500 inclusion dates are not just administrative calendar entries. They are forced liquidity events that move tens of billions of dollars in a compressed window, create predictable but increasingly arbitraged price dislocations, and carry real tax consequences for investors holding index exposure
The S&P 500 delivered a five-year annualized total return of approximately 15.7% from January 2019 through December 2023, well above its long-run historical average of roughly 10% annually. That headline number looks clean. For investors in the top federal bracket, the after-tax reality is meaningfu
Every S&P 500 rebalance announcement sets off a predictable chain of forced buying and selling across thousands of funds simultaneously. With over $5 trillion benchmarked to the index, according to Morningstar, even a single addition or deletion can move hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter o
The S&P 500's year-over-year price change is one of the most cited numbers in finance and one of the most misread. For a FATFIRE portfolio, the gross nominal return is almost irrelevant. What matters is the after-tax, inflation-adjusted figure, and for top-bracket investors that number is materially
The NYSE vs S&P 500 distinction is one of the most commonly conflated in finance, and getting it wrong has real portfolio consequences. The NYSE is a stock exchange, a marketplace where securities are bought and sold. The S&P 500 is a market index, a statistical measure tracking 500 selected large-c
S&P 500 rolling returns reveal something point-to-point measurements never can: the full distribution of outcomes across every historical entry point. Based on data going back to 1926, every single 20-year rolling return period has been positive. Not most of them. All of them. That single fact shoul
S&P events move markets in predictable, calendar-driven windows. For investors managing eight-figure portfolios, that predictability is an edge. Index reconstitutions force billions in coordinated institutional trades. Credit rating actions trigger mandatory selling from constrained funds. Each crea
The S&P 500 requirements set a hard floor that excludes roughly 98% of all U.S. publicly traded companies. As of 2024, the minimum unadjusted market capitalization threshold sits at $14.5 billion, up from $12.7 billion in 2023. That number alone tells you this is not a passive list of large companie
The S&P 500 and dollar correlation is one of the most misunderstood relationships in macro investing, and getting it wrong at scale is expensive. The short version: the two assets tend to move inversely during normal market conditions, but that relationship breaks down precisely when you need it mos
The short answer: better than most investors expect, and not differently enough from non-election years to justify defensive repositioning. Schwab's analysis of S&P 500 returns from 1948 through 2020 found positive returns in 17 of 19 presidential election years. The Stock Trader's Almanac puts the