If 401(k)s are now 201(k)s, should the S&P 500 become the S&P 256?
The Financial Times ran the numbers and found that 244 companies don't have a big enough market capitalization to qualify for stock market index.
Remember 11 days ago Unisys Corp. got bounced from the S&P 500 Index because its low market capitalization no longer made it one of the nation's biggest companies?
Well, the Financial Times says that Standard & Poor's Corp. might as well as chuck 244 other companies too.
One requirement for being included in the widely watched measure of the U.S. stock market is a market cap of more than $4 billion. But as of the opening of the market on Friday, only 256 companies had a value greater than that.
Still, don't look for wholesale index cleaning. The FT points out that the S&P 500 is run by committee, which often strives to minimize churn in the index. Turnover in 2007 was just 5 percent.
Besides at the rate the market value is being destroyed, there soon may little difference between small cap and large cap stocks.