Over the past 50 years, the S&P 500 has been the cornerstone of Standard & Poor’s U.S. Indices. As markets evolve, the S&P 500 adapts. Each business day, there are fundamental ways that investment professionals use the S&P 500. Through time, it has become an investment tool for benchmarking performance, creating index-linked products, managing risk and customizing for specific objectives.

An excerpt of from the “Complete Historical Timeline of the S&P 500”:

• 1957 – On March 4th, the S&P 500 daily composite stock price index was launched, consisting of 425 industrials, 15 rails and 60 utilities.
• 1960 – Hourly S&P 500 indices were made available to the general public by telephone at no charge.
• 1964 – The SEC ended production of its price indices and substituted the S&P 500.
• 1975 – The first index mutual fund offered to individual investors was later named the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which tracks the S&P 500.
• 1982 – Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) began trading futures based on S&P’s composite index of 500 stocks.

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