The surprisingly lucrative business of making a list of 500 stocks

['Alex Mayyasi', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] TPR: The Public's Radio 2025-09-23 16:00:00

Less well-known is that S&P Global, the company that makes the S&P 500 and that employed Blitzer, is itself on the S&P 500 list. In 1982, the investment-management company Vanguard started offering S&P 500 index funds — basically, an easy way to invest in all the stocks of the S&P 500. That fee was based on how much money people invested in S&P 500 index funds and ETFs (or spent on S&P 500 futures). Blitzer’s simple list of 500 stocks was one of the hottest portfolios on Wall Street, and getting access to it was cheap. Of that $16.6 trillion, a whopping $13 trillion came from SPY, Vanguard’s S&P 500 index fund and similar investments.