 | Markets Talk, We Translate |
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| Last week, translated |
Your S&P 500 tracker
leans on a handful of names |
| The S&P 500 fell 0.6% last week. The equal-weight version, made of the same 500 companies, rose 0.8%. |
| The standard S&P 500 counts each company by its size. Apple moves it far more than a mid-sized insurer does. The equal-weight version gives every company the same say. So when the two split like that, it's telling you the biggest names did the damage. |
| You could see it on 30 October. The S&P 500 fell 1.82%, its worst day since 5 June. The equal-weight version lost 0.79%. And 230 of the 503 shares in the index actually went up. |
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| Look at the whole year and the same pattern shows up from the other side. By our estimate, seven companies made about 52% of the S&P 500's gain: Apple, Micron, AMD, Nvidia, Eli Lilly, Microsoft and Exxon. Roughly 490 others shared the rest. |
| But the biggest names haven't all been winners. Alphabet's down 10.6% this year. Tesla's down 11.1% and Meta's down 6.8%. That's why the equal-weight version is up 14.0% while the standard one's up 10.7%. |
| So why does this matter? Because a tracker isn't an even slice of 500 companies. On our numbers the 10 biggest make up about 39% of it. When they move, your diversified fund moves with them. |
| That's not a reason to ditch your tracker. It's a reason to know what's inside it. If you also own Nvidia or Apple directly, you probably own more of them than you think. |
| It's one of the first things members look at in their own portfolio. Not what the big names do next. How much of their money depends on them. |
| So here's my question. Add up your tracker and your own shares. How much rides on the same handful of names? Hit reply and tell me. I read them all. |
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| P.S. FINK OS goes up from £1,940 to £2,040 at 00:00 UK time on 7 November. When you join, you'll also get lifetime access to the new FINK Signal, which launches this week and is normally $300 a year. You'll get a 1:1 setup call too, so you're up to speed fast. If you were going to join anyway, here's the page. |
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| @Fink_Money | fink.money | | Education, not financial advice. Capital at risk. | | S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) closes from FMP, price only. Last week compares closes on the 23rd and 30th of October 2026. Breadth on the 30th of October from FMP quotes for all 503 index lines. The 52% and 39% figures are FINK estimates from FMP full market values for today's constituents, not official index weights. Figures checked on the 31st of October 2026. |
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