No, indexes are meant to track something. The Russel 2000 index has very different criteria for the S&P 500 index. The Dow Jones is yet another one.

The criteria for none of the above is “slow moving”, far from it. Those are all expected to be high growth vehicles for retirement. Safe stuff is bond blended.

Plenty of people at shit in the GFC being invested in “slow moving” S&P 500 companies like Lehman Brothers, WaMu, AIG, GM, etc.

“Was profitable for a while” != “safe” nor is it necessarily good to park money there. You need explosive growth companies that invest rather than profit (like Amazon) being in the S&P 500 are a critical part of its performance.

If retirements only tracked stable mature companies that would be utilities and other stuff that doesn’t actually get you to retirement.