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gitfan86 | on: Can the stockmarket swallow Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI?
This fundamentally misunderstand the point of an index. The fundamental reason S&P 500 exists is to let people buy the entire market ( the top 500 companies make up most of the entire market ). That is it. Period.

They are not saying these 500 companies are going to be the most successful in 6 months or 10 years. At one point Enron was 0.6% of S&P500 because it was a large company, not because the directors at S&P500 thought the management were honest people.

If you don't like that, fine, don't buy S&P500 and buy stocks or other funds that do have companies you like.

sigmoid10 | parent | next
This disregards the fundamental reason why people buy index funds in the first place. Rules for consistent GAAP profitability and cooldown periods specifically prevent retail investors from being exposed to particular malicious stock market tactics and overall risks that otherwise could significantly hurt them in the short term. So it's more like saying "you don't like extra risk? too bad."
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syntaxing | parent | next
This is simply not true and a misrepresentation of the issue. There is no issue with SP500 buying into all these companies. The issue is that “valuation” should be determined by the market before the index funds buy into it hence the original rules and policy in place. Else wise we run into the issue now where our 401K is pumping the IPO, regardless of fundamentals.
cj | parent | next
> The fundamental reason S&P 500 exists is to let people buy the entire market

And why do people want to buy the entire market in the first place? They want to diversify and insulate themselves from a single company crashing their portfolio value.

What are people afraid of right now? They're afraid of a single company crashing their portfolio value.

Why are people afraid of their portfolio value crashing? Because these 3 companies will fundamentally increase the overall risk and volatility of the index.

Do you see the problem?

rjh29 | root | parent
The problem is people equating S&P 500 with "set and forget" investment when that's never what it was. It's an index. You're not paying anyone to balance it with a particular risk profile.

There are indexes that invest equal amounts of money into all companies, so Nvidia doesn't dominate. Or you can pick low growth high dividend indexes to insulate against AI. Or just grab Vanguard LifeStrategy if you don't want to think.

The current situation is unusual. No index can handle all situations. Either adapt or use a fund that does the thinking for you, right?

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goolz | parent | next
Why the special rules for SpaceX though? I still do not understand why the world’s richest man and one of the most valuable companies needs an exemption? Genuinely confused.
DarkNova6 | root | parent
Makes you think how he got so rich in the first place…
webdood90 | parent
Why would you accept this? Who does this serve?

I want to believe the world is full of good people but I read stuff like this and realize otherwise.

gitfan86 | root | parent
Why do you assume SpaceX will be a failure? Do you have a track record of being correct on Elon companies? If SpaceX succeeds and its in the SPY from day one that serves everyone who owns index funds.