Investopedia: What is the difference between the S&P 500 and the Fortune 500?

Investopedia
Investing
Financial Analysis
What is the difference between the S&P 500 and the Fortune 500?

    FACEBOOK
    TWITTER
    LINKEDIN

By Investopedia
Updated Mar 31, 2015

The Fortune 500 and the S&P 500 are different measures of companies in the United States, and they are compiled by two different companies. The Fortune 500 is an annual list of the 500 largest companies using the most recent revenue figures and includes public and private companies. The S&P 500 is an index of 500 public companies that are selected by the S&P Index Committee. The main difference between the two lists is that one includes private companies, while the other only includes publicly traded large-cap companies.

The Fortune 500 is an annual list of the 500 largest companies in the U.S. using the most recent figures for revenues. It is compiled and managed by Fortune magazine and includes both public and private companies. The Fortune 500 can be used to gauge the health of the overall U.S. economy. When many companies of a sector are removed from the list, it may signal weakness in that particular sector.

The S&P 500 is an index composed of 500 large-cap stocks that represent the leading industries of the U.S. economy. The S&P Index Committee chooses which 500 companies should be placed in the index by analyzing liquidity, industry and market capitalization of publicly traded companies. Large-cap companies are those that have a market capitalization of over $10 billion. The S&P 500 measures the overall risk, return and performance of the large-cap equities market. It is the main benchmark that investors and practitioners use to gauge the health of U.S. large-cap stocks.
Compare Popular Online Brokers
Related Articles

ETFs
How the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 Indexes Differ

Financial Analysis
What Does the S&P 500 Index Measure and How Is It Calculated?

Markets & Economy
The S&P 500: The Index You Need To Know

Financial Analysis
How is the value of the S&P 500 calculated?

Financial Analysis
What Is The Difference Between Alpha And Beta?

Financial Analysis
ROE vs ROCE: The Difference

    About Us
    Advertise
    Contact
    Privacy Policy
    Terms of Use
    Careers

Investopedia is part of the Dotdash publishing family.

    The Balance
    Lifewire
    TripSavvy
    The Spruce
    and more