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tristanjtoday at 6:32 AM4 repliesview on HN

Those filters for S&P 500 inclusion criteria have changed many times. They are not sacred nor set in stone. The question is, do those filters, which were designed for GAAP profitable traditional companies & discriminate against fast growing cash-flow-reinvesting startups that prioritize growth over profit, unnecessarily exclude major players in the U.S. stock market? The S&P inclusion criteria reward companies that prioritize profit over growth.

SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are all giga-caps preparing to IPO, and none of them will be eligible for S&P inclusion because of the 12-month profitability requirement. At current valuations, all are part of the top 20 largest companies in the US. These companies may be excluded from the S&P500 for potentially years, until they reach 12 months of profitability.

And you are vastly overstating the effect of S&P500 fast track inclusion, the plan was to reduce it from 12 months to 6 months; which is more than enough time for the market to find a price.


Replies

jurgenburgentoday at 7:05 AM

> Under current rules, these fast-growing companies would be excluded from the S&P500 for potentially years, until they reach 12 months of profitability.

> And you are vastly overstating the effect of S&P500 fast tracking, the plan was to reduce it from 12 months to 6 months; which is more than enough time for the market to find a price.

They might never reach 6 months of profitability, let alone 12 months.

ywvcbktoday at 7:13 AM

> which is more than enough time for the market to find a price

The price markets find would still inevitably be influence by the knowledge that the demand would increase massively in a few months.

> inclusion criteria reward companies that prioritize profit over growth

Or stable and sustainable growth. Whatever else SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic valuations are price in extremely optimistic growth. But yeah, I do see a point that including adequately priced growth stocks could be a net benefit but of course accouting for the actual valuation would turn index funds into managed ones.

Thankfully its not an issue at all since there is Nasdaq 100.

usef-today at 8:05 AM

My mistake: it was Nasdaq that is being reduced to days, not S&P. Thanks.

SecretDreamstoday at 11:13 AM

Thank absolute Christ none of the companies you just listed will enter SP500 by default. The Risk/Reward is not functionally there to fast track companies and all of the examples you listed are too big to keep coasting on venture capital. Let them be public for 6+ months and let's see where they are at in the eyes of the public markers and then their inclusion can be re-evaluated.

What's the downside for the average pension holder with a 30 year horizon if they miss 6 months of Elon's newest scheme?