Key Takeaways
- Sandisk today joined the S&P 500, making it the latest company to join the benchmark U.S. index.
- The company’s shares have been big gainers this year, pulling its market capitalization north of $31 billion.
Shares of Sandisk climbed Friday as the data storage company joined the benchmark S&P 500 index.
Sandisk’s (SNDK) stock jumped close to 11% Friday morning before paring back much of its early gains. Its shares, which have been lifted by demand driven by the AI boom, are among the hottest around this year; the company was spun off from Western Digital (WDC) in February, and the stock is up more than 500% since. The company’s market capitalization is above $31 billion, according to Visible Alpha data.
Why This Matters to Investors
Inclusion in a major index like the S&P 500 can be seen as a boon for a company’s shares. In some cases investors even buy a non-member’s stock in advance of an expected addition—at times finding themselves disappointed when another company is chosen.
The spot in the S&P 500 was available because of the completion of Omnicom Group’s (OMC) acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG) earlier this week. The two previous companies to join the index, Solstice Advance Materials (SOLS) and Qnity (Q), were also the products of spinoffs.
Investors generally cheer the addition of companies’ shares to the S&P 500 and other major indexes, which is seen as giving them a short-term bump. Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s holiday-shortened trading here.
A few other index changes are also happening today. PTC Therapeutics (PTCT) is taking Sandisk’s spot in the S&P SmallCap 600; Upwork (UPWK) is also joining that index, replacing Premier, which was taken private.
