Unlike the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index (S&P 500) is a value-weighted index. The S&P 500 index is usually considered the benchmark for U.S. equality performance. It represents seventy percent of all U.S. publicly traded companies. Part of the index’s popularity is due to its close association with the largest mutual fund in the world, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Spiders, the first exchange traded fund.

As the name suggests, the S&P 500 consists of 500 companies from a diverse range of industries. Contrary to a popular misconception, the S&P 500 is not a simple list of the largest 500 companies by market capitalization or by revenues. Rather, it is 500 of the most widely held U.S.-based common stocks, chosen by the S&P Index Committee for market size, liquidity, and sector representation. "Leading companies in leading industries" is the guiding principal for S&P 500 inclusion. A small number of international companies that are widely traded in the U.S. are included, but the Index Committee has announced that only U.S.-based companies will be added in the future.

The S&P 500 is a relatively reliable index; after all, it represents approxi

The Summary & Index contains an index of all stocks in the publication as well as many up-to-date statistics about the latest company results. It also contains a variety of stock "screens" designed to help investors identify companies with various characteristics.

A unique and extraordinarily powerful component of The Value Line Investment Survey is its Timeliness Ranking System. Every week, the Ranking System screens millions of data items and, using a proprietary series of calculations, ranks each of the approximately 1,700 stocks for performance relative to each other during the next six to 12 months. This Timeliness Ranking System provides the basis for the stock ranks in The Value Line Investment Survey.

Every measure of changes in stock prices - index or average - must frequently be adjusted to reflect only movements resulting from auction market activity and eliminate the influence of corporate actions. Any change in the capitalization of an individual issue or of all issues in aggregate is dealt with in this index by making a proportionate change in the market value of the base figure.

Value Line publishes more than a dozen print and electronic products utilized by more than half-a-million investors for timely information on stocks, mutual funds, special situations, options

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