What Is Standard & Poor’s (S&P)? Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is a company well known around the world as a creator of financial market indices—widely used as investment benchmarks—a data source, and an issuer of credit ratings for companies and debt obligations. It’s perhaps best-known for the popular and often-cited S&P 500 Index. The company’s
What Is the E-mini S&P 500? The term E-mini S&P 500 refers to an electronically-traded futures and options contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Launched by the CME in 1997, the E-mini S&P 500 is open to all investors. It allows them to hedge their bets or speculate on the price movements of the
What Is the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index? The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index measures the change in the value of the U.S. residential housing market by tracking the purchase prices of single-family homes. The index is compiled and published monthly. The national index is widely viewed
What Is the CNX Nifty? The term CNX Nifty refers to a regional stock market index found on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India. The index is composed of 50 of the largest and most liquid stocks found on the exchange. The Nifty 50, as it is commonly known, is used to represent the
What Is the S&P 500 Index? The S&P 500 Index, or Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, is a market-capitalization-weighted index of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the U.S. It is not an exact list of the top 500 U.S. companies by market cap because there are other criteria that the index includes. Still, the S&P
What Is the S&P 500 Buyback Index? The S&P 500 Buyback Index tracks the performance of the 100 S&P 500 stocks with the highest buyback ratios over the past 12 months. The S&P 500 Buyback Index is equal-weighted and rebalanced quarterly, with the rebalancing reference dates occurring on the last trading day of each calendar
What Is the S&P 500 Pure Value Index? The term S&P 500 Pure Value Index refers to a score-weighted index developed by Standard and Poor’s (S&P). The index uses what it calls a “style-attractiveness-weighting scheme” and only consists of stocks within the S&P 500 Index that exhibit strong value characteristics. The index was launched in
What Is the S&P 600? The S&P 600 is an index of small-cap stocks managed by Standard & Poor’s. It tracks a broad range of small-sized companies that meet specific liquidity and stability requirements. This is determined by specific metrics such as public float, market capitalization, and financial viability, among other factors. Key Takeaways The S&P 600 is
What Are Soft Dollars? Soft dollars are a means of paying brokerage firms for their services through commission revenue, as opposed to through hard-dollar direct payments. The investing public tends to have a negative perception of soft-dollar arrangements. Many investors believe that buy-side firms should pay expenses out of their own profits. As a result
What Is a Soft Fork? In blockchain technology, a soft fork is a change to the software protocol where only previously valid transaction blocks are made invalid. Because old nodes will recognize the new blocks as valid, a soft fork is backwards-compatible. This kind of fork requires only a majority of the miners upgrading to enforce
