S&P 500
A stock market index that tracks about 500 of the biggest U.S. companies. It's the most common way to measure how the market did.
In the news
How “S&P 500” came up in recent issues.
- Oct 26Oil jumps and stocks slide: what it means for gas money
“The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 653 points, or 1.2%, and the S&P 500 lost 0.5%.”
- Oct 23Tech stocks slid on AI spending worries, and phones cost more
“The Nasdaq dropped 2.6%, its biggest one-day fall since early June, and the S&P 500 lost 1.2%.”
- Oct 22A rocket company's strong profits lifted stocks, and shook phone carriers
“The S&P 500 gained 0.6% and the Nasdaq gained 1.1%, pulling the S&P 500 closer to the record high it set earlier this month.”
Learn the bigger idea
Related words
- Stock
- A small slice of ownership in a company. One unit is called a share.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average
- A stock market index that tracks 30 large U.S. companies.
- Nasdaq Composite
- A stock market index of the thousands of companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. It leans heavily toward tech companies.
- Earnings per share
- A company's profit divided by its number of shares. Wall Street compares it with what analysts expected.
- Revenue
- All the money a company brings in from sales, before any costs are taken out.
- Guidance
- A company's forecast of its future sales or profits. Stocks often move more on guidance than on past results.
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