Before I dive into the S&P 500 index, I previously wrote an exhaustive article about stock market indices, which you can find here:
You can read a lot of interesting things about stock market indices in these. The most famous one, which most of you use as a reference point, but has not been discussed yet, is the S&P 500 index. Typically, the name of this index comes up when a serious economic news is released, and experts also use this index as a reference. What does the S&P500 index price chart look like? In the image below, you can see the current status of the S&P500, courtesy of Tradingview:
But what stocks are included in the S&P 500 index and how was it formed? That's what we'll talk about now.
📈S&P 500 index: history
At the dawn of the stock market, things worked very differently than they do today. This is what Edwin Lefévre's book, published in several languages, tells us: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to delve a little deeper into the subject, it's not very professional, it's more of an entertaining work. In the early 1900s, there was not as fast a flow of information as there is today, and it was possible to speculate and arbitrage, as news arrived slowly from one stock exchange to another. There were no real reference points against which to measure the performance of the markets and especially individual stocks. This unfortunate situation had to be resolved somehow, so one of the first American stock market indexes, the DJIA, was created.
📊Dawn of the indices: DJTI/DJIA
The first American index was not the DJIA, but the Dow Jones Transportation Index. Even this was preceded by the world's first publicly traded stock in 1602, the VOC, which was actually the title deed of the Dutch East India Company. But back to America, the DJTI was created by Charles Dow in July 1884 and included stocks of 11 transportation companies, including railroads. In keeping with the spirit of the times, railroads were the most interesting sector, and this was true not only in America but also in England.
The index worked very simply: they added up the share prices of all companies and then divided it by the number of companies, this is called a price-weighted index. The index still exists today, containing 20 companies, and other transportation (land, water, air) companies that did not exist at the time have also been added. Of the original 11 companies, only the Union Pacific railroad company exists today. This is worth noting because it clearly shows how large a proportion of companies on the American stock market disappear into the abyss of history.
🏦But who is Charles Dow and what does he have to do with indices?
Charles Henry Dow is an American business journalist, co-founder of the company Dow Jones & Company, which he founded with two gentlemen, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser, in 1882. Seemingly completely uninteresting information becomes interesting when I add that:
- One of their publications, the Customer's Afternoon Letter, was originally a 4-page publication and dealt primarily with economic news, including stock market news. From 1889 it continued to run under the name Wallstreet Journal.
- In 1895, Charles Dow and Edward Jones created the DJIA, which is still used today, i.e.: Dow Jones Industrial Average index
🧭What is Dow Theory?
☝🏼It is also worth mentioning the Dow Theory, which is also associated with Charles Dow, and its essence is that industry and transportation should go hand in hand, as together they satisfy the needs of the economy.
Originally, it reads: "industrial make and transports take", which loosely translates to mean that the raw materials used by industry are provided by transport. If the index of companies in the two groups starts to diverge, for example, industry overproduces goods and consumers no longer buy them, then it is a bad sign for the general state of the economy. It should be added that in the more than 120 years that have passed since then, industrial companies no longer account for the vast majority of economic production. For this reason, they do not play as important a role in index weighting as they used to. That is why the importance of this correlation has diminished over time.
🚀DJIA - Dow Jones Industrial Average
It's not particularly difficult to guess that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which still exists today, was created in 1895 from the names of these gentlemen. The index originally contained 12 companies, but today this number has grown to 30 and basically includes industrial companies. The DJIA is a so-called price-weighted index, as is the Japanese Nikkei 225, while the S&P 500 index is a capitalization-weighted indicator. But what is it anyway and why is it important from our point of view?
✨Price-weighted indices: This is the older method, the point is that by adding up the prices of the companies and dividing it by the number of companies, we form an arithmetic average. If the prices of the companies fall, the index follows it. The main problem with the system is that the weight of the companies is not reflected in them, the smallest company counts as much as the largest. The index also does not examine why the exchange rate drop occurred, whether there is an underlying economic impact, productivity, i.e. a decrease in revenue and profits, or whether it is just a panic reaction. Of course, not all price-weighted indices are constructed using an arithmetic average, there are other methods for constructing the index.
✨Capitalization-weighted indices: It takes the size of the companies as its basis, which is also known as market capitalization. This value is derived from the product of the share price and the number of shares, so larger companies have a greater influence on the movement of the index than smaller ones due to their larger market capitalization. Of course, this method also suffers from problems, for example, the price movements of companies that grow too large mask the possible opposite movement of smaller ones. The S&P 500 index is a capitalization-weighted index, as are most modern indexes.
📌In practice: It's not by chance that they come up with names like the Magnificent Seven, which are the 7 largest companies that influence the S&P 500 index by about 33%. Never think that it shows all stocks with equal weight, or that this is true diversification, while companies with 2-3000 trillion USD are listed together with companies with 10-20 billion USD, this is a hundredfold difference.
🌍The S&P 500 index is created
The S&P 500 index, in full, stands for Standard and Poor's 500, which is a capitalization-weighted index and originally comprised the 500 largest companies in the United States. Its history goes back quite a long way, in 1860 Henry Varnum Poor founded Poor's Publishing, which was a publishing company that produced investment publications, primarily for the railroad industry. The other leg of the current Standards & Poor's company is the Standard Statistics Company, founded in 1923, which actually emerged from the Standard Statistics Bureau, which was founded in 1906, and was basically involved in mortgage credit ratings, and they also had their own stock market index, which included 233 American companies.
The two companies merged in 1941, forming Standard & Poor's, one of the three major credit rating agencies, the other two being Moody's and Fitch. The aforementioned index, which contained 233 American companies, was expanded to 1957 companies in March 500 and renamed the S&P 500 Stock Composite Index, which we usually refer to as the S&P 500 index. Many other things have happened to the index in the more than sixty years since its creation, one thing I would like to highlight is that since 2005 the S&P 500 index has been a so-called "float-adjusted capitalization-weighting" index, which we will talk about a little bit now.
🧘Meaning of "float-adjusted capitalization-weighting".
"Capitalization-weighting" means weighting based on market capitalization, while "float-adjusted" means that the index only takes into account those stocks that are actually available on the market. The essence of "free-float" is that shares that are blocked for some reason are subtracted from the total number of shares of the company. For example, shares owned by the state, with which the central government does nothing, do not trade on the market, they just "sit" on it. A few examples of this: Nike (NKE) shares that provide voting rights do not trade on the market, this was also included in the company's analysis, you can find it here: Nike Inc. (NKE) Stock Analysis – Chasing InnovationThis solution is not unique at all, the DAX Index is like this too, I wrote about it here: DAX index: the most important stock market index for Germans (2025)To give a corporate example, Porsche AG and VolksWagen AG are partly owned by Porsche Holding SE, for example, only 25% of the shares of the former company are floating on the market, the remaining 75% are owned by VW and Porsche Holding SE. I wrote about this in my analysis of Porsche AG (P911): Porsche AG (P911) Stock Analysis.
☝🏼Taking floating shares into account reduces the weight of companies in the index and balances the index.
Currently, the S&P 500 index contains 505 companies, the reason for this is that there are companies that operate in a dual share structure, such as Alphabet, which can be found with both GOOG and GOOGL identifiers (GOOGLThe full list can be viewed on Slickcharts (Slickcharts), together with the weighting, which should be interpreted as if it were a percentage, the sum of the companies is 100%. I would like to insert an important piece of information here, which I will return to later, and that is the weight of the first few companies out of the total 100%:
- 💫The largest company: ~7.3%
- 💫Top 3 companies: ~20.2%
- 💫Top 5 companies: ~27.2%
- 💫Top ten companies: ~36.6%
🧠S&P 500 index: how can a company be included?
The S&P 500 index is a product of a company, S&P Global Inc., they also operate the index, so a committee determines which companies can be included and under what conditions. It is also worth noting that the company's shares can be purchased on the stock exchange under the ticker SPGI, and the S&P 500 index also includes the company. Of course, you can not only be included, but also excluded from this list, this happened with Exxon Mobile (XOM) in mid-2020, but it has since been reinstated. There is a list of exceptions that is worth noting in advance, because I think it is interesting why these are not included in the S&P 500 index. The following cannot be included in the index:
- MLP and limited partnership type companies: there are quite a few of these among energy companies, investment trusts, closed-end funds, ETFs, preferred shares, warrants, convertible bonds and a few other forms.
- From 2017, companies that operate in a dual share structure, but the old ones were not delisted, such as Alphabet (GOOGL).
The above is interesting because in 2021, when oil started to soar again, for example, the price increases of oil companies such as EPD and MMP will not appear in the S&P500 index chart. And if the ban on dual share structures were applied retroactively, then Google, Berkshire Hathaway or, say, Under Armour would be out.
🔄S&P 500 index inclusion criteria
To be included in the S&P 500 index, a company must meet the following 5 criteria:
- ☝🏼be an American company
- ☝🏼its market capitalization should reach at least $13.1 billion (this is a variable number, right now it is that much)
- ☝🏼the annual trading volume of the stock should reach the market capitalization
- ☝🏼at least 250000 shares change hands every month, over a six-month period
- ☝🏼be available on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ
I collected the above criteria from Wikipedia, but these are only the prerequisites that a company must meet in order to be included in the index at all, this does not mean that they will be voted on by the S&P 500 index committee. In order for a company to actually be included, companies must also meet other conditions:
- ☝🏼At least 50% of its shares must be tradable
- ☝🏼must show a profit in the most recent quarter
- ☝🏼at least 1 year has passed since its IPO
- ☝🏼The sum of the combined profits and losses of the last 4 quarters must be positive (this was also a problem for Tesla in the past (TSLA))
I've already mentioned it above, but I think it's worth repeating: Even if the above criteria are met, inclusion is not necessary; only the committee can decide to add the company to the S&P 500 index list, but this usually also means excluding other companies.
🤷Why is it good to be listed on the S&P 500 index?
The answer is relatively clear, if you think about it: these companies receive more attention from investors than usual. To give a real-life example, out of my previous, relatively well-diversified 32-stock portfolio, 8 were not S&P 500 index members, although 2 of them were Chinese, 1 was Taiwanese, and 2 were MLPs, which could not be included based on the above prohibitions. In total, there were 3 stocks that for some reason do not meet the S&P criteria, but otherwise could have been part of the index.
📌In practice: My portfolio above did not change because the stocks were not included in the index, in fact, I never considered this criterion, I just mentioned it as an interesting fact.
Returning to the spotlight, it's not just about the fact that the press is picking up on these companies more, but also that funds and ETFs that track the stocks of the S&P 500 index are automatically obliged to buy the stocks in the index, which naturally generates buying pressure. The opposite is also true, if a company drops out, the funds start selling it. And those who like conspiracy theories will like the news from Bloomberg News, which wrote in October 2021 that some companies bought ratings from S&P Global, since these are obviously paid services, in order to increase the chances of being included in the index. Here you can see the situation in 2021.
Below you can see the status as of July 2025, it is worth looking up what the changes are. This trend is completely normal, over the decades the Top 20 has almost always changed, companies come and go, but there are two fixed stars. For example, Berkshire Hathaway is on both pictures.
💡Although this is not directly related to the anomalies surrounding the S&P 500 index, if a company undergoes a stock split and therefore appears to be cheaper, but in reality it is not, and it is also in view because it is a member of the S&P 500 index, then its price may go up.
🌀Anomalies around the S&P 500 index
You can often hear that the stock market has a long-term return of 9-10%, depending on the source. It is very important that there is no homogeneous medium that can actually be called a stock market, since it would have to be defined somehow, but what do we mean by this term? For example, you can refer to the MSCI world index, or you can also name the American stock exchanges, which account for about 55-60% of the world's total turnover, then the S&P 500 index will most likely be the reference base.
👀What is the stock market yield?
Anyone who has read the article so far already knows that the 500 companies in the S&P 500 index are not the same as the number of companies listed on American stock exchanges, as this number is 4266, but for example, you can only find 2400 on Finviz, so it is already a gross distortion to equate the S&P 500 index with only American companies.
However, there are much bigger problems with the index and its reference. On the one hand, the determination of the return is not entirely clear, since:
- ☝🏼should we mean with or without dividends?
- ☝🏼is it a nominal or real return (you have to subtract inflation from the former to get the latter)
There is a great table on Wikipedia under the S&P 500 index article that summarizes the averages over many years, the 25-year median of which is 10.76% including dividends. You can take this as a guideline, but of course the future expected return of your own portfolio is also distorted by the fact that a lot of companies will not be in the S&P 500, unless you buy the entire index as an ETF.
🧬S&P 500 index weighting problems
I would like to illustrate with an example how the differences between equal weighting and capitalization weighting distort the results. Let's say you take the performance of the DJIA as a basis, where all companies are considered identical. In contrast, if you look at Apple (AAPL), with its $3.1 trillion market cap, it alone accounts for five to six percent of the S&P500 index. If you compare this size with the $13.1 billion market cap required for the minimum inclusion threshold, you get roughly 235 companies of the same size.
If Apple's share price rises by the same amount as the share price of these 235 companies falls, then it seems like nothing has happened in the market, based on the S&P 500 index. The situation is even worse when we look at the largest companies by sector, and typically we find technology/communications/financial companies in the top 20, not utilities or raw materials companies. This means that if the price of a specific sector rises or falls, it can drastically distort the value of the S&P 500 index.
🚨The S&P 500 index and the exclusion effect
I hadn't invested in stocks during the 2007-2009 subprime crisis, but like a good student, I read back what happened, watched the movies about it, read the literature, and did the same with the dotcom bubble. I was interested in where the prices were moving, and I found some nasty big drops, suddenly CitiGroup (C) example jumps out. Then it occurred to me to look at what happened to CitiGroup during the subprime crisis.
I think it's not surprising that in 2009 it was simply removed from the DJIA index, this is called exclusion. The same can happen to any company in the S&P 500 index, as the SPGI committee can decide on the inclusion and exclusion of companies on an individual basis, and thus eliminate poorly performing companies if it feels like it. However, the shares will not be delisted from your portfolio, or from the ETF that tracks the S&P 500, they must be sold, otherwise the weighting will shift. This obviously has a cost, you will suffer a loss in the exchange rate, etc.
The other example of how to get out of the index is when a company goes private, usually when a venture capital firm buys the shares of a publicly traded company and simply delists it. Examples include the 2013 acquisition of BMC or the recent delisting of Wallgreens Boots Alliance. Companies can also be removed from the S&P 500 index if they are acquired by a listed company, and if the acquiring company is not included in the index, it will automatically be removed from the S&P 500. It is also possible for two companies in the index to merge, in which case the market capitalization of the acquiring company is “integrated” into that of the other company.
📉Distortion of the S&P 500 index and underlying tracking products
It is important to understand that the S&P 500 index is not a financial instrument, it is just an indicator, so it cannot be purchased. However, investors want to track the price movements of the index, so financial professionals have created various financial products for them to do this, such as ETFs. The problem is that the underlying product has some costs that will be deducted from the profit, meaning that the result will be smaller than the benchmark index. Of course, this will not be significant in the short term, but the effect will be felt over a 25-year period. The point is that no one will ever achieve exactly the same price movement as the real index 100%. If you want to read more about ETFs, you can find the article here: ETF meaning and usage
😱The S&P 500 index can distort market prices
Continuing with the example above, let's examine how an ETF fund is created. If the ETF fund wants to track the performance of the S&P 500 index, it simply needs to buy the stocks in it. In addition to the cost of this, as I mentioned above, it generates buying pressure on some companies' shares. Since underpricing depends on a hundred other things, it is not possible to say for sure that being excluded from the index causes this, but it may also play a role.
You can track the movement of the S&P 500 index not only in the form of shares and creating a fund from them, but also with various derivative products, such as CFDs. In this case, the broker does not buy the stocks in the index, but only tracks their movements. Since this is an OTC, or over-the-counter, solution, I have never dealt with it, but it is worth knowing about its existence.
🏛️The distorting effect of share buybacks
Since 1982, the repurchase of own shares has been legally permitted in the USA. Most companies do this, as it is a means of creating shareholder value and plays a significant role in total return potential. Better management buys back its own shares when the company's valuation is depressed. To use a simple example, if a company has a market capitalization of $200 billion, the company can buy back half as many shares for the same amount of money as if it were worth $100 billion. Companies are better off spending their money opportunistically, at a lower valuation.
How does this relate to the value of the S&P 500 index? Since it is a capitalization-weighted index, when companies buy back their own shares, the number of shares decreases. This also reduces the company's market capitalization, and therefore its weight within the index. In the long run, of course, such actions by companies are price-inflating, and therefore they are usually priced back into the stock, but this does not happen immediately. Of course, this will not make the company worth less in reality, but the difference will be demonstrable "on paper".
Another effect on investors is the increase in earnings per share. Let's look at a simple example: a company has 100 shares and its profit is 100 USD. This means that EPS (Earnings per Share) = 100/100=1. If the company buys back 10 shares, the same amount of profit will apply to fewer shares. EPS = 100/90=1.1. This indicates to investors that the company has become more valuable, since its earnings per share have increased. This will also be reflected in a number of indicators, for example, in the P/E ratio, the value of which will fall, making the company seem cheaper. Investors will therefore be more willing to buy it. According to some studies, 37% of the return of the index in question over the last decade and a half is due to share buybacks (Market Huddle Podcast), which is an astonishing number, and this obviously distorts the index.
📈The S&P 500 index as a benchmark
The S&P 500 index is a reference point for most investors. They measure their own returns and the price changes of individual stocks, but they also use the S&P 500 indicators as a basis for comparison. Larger, paid sites almost always have such statistics about the stock market index, which serve as a great basis for comparison to compare the values of individual companies to the values of the index.
For example, is the market expensive right now? Let's look at the P/E ratio of the S&P500 companies. Currently, in July 2025, it is 30.41, with a median of 15.05, so the US stock market is considered expensive. Now let's look at an individual company, say Paypal (PYPL). Paypal has a P/E of 15.26, up 12.25% in the past year, and is projected to grow at 12.11% per year over the next five years. So is this valuation too high or too low? It all depends on what you consider a benchmark, but the S&P 500 index is usually the benchmark. How much do S&P 500 companies grow on average? About ~6.5% per year. So you could say that Paypal has grown almost twice as fast so far, and is projected to grow twice as fast as the market.
📊S&P 500 index display issues
I have also written about this topic in another article, which you can read here: Stock market index meaning and usage (2025)Some charting software displays stock prices linearly, while others display them logarithmically. Since many people look at how much the graph has risen, not the percentage, if the graph is in linear mode, it will show deceptively large rises and falls. The other, but relatively well-known fact is that a 50% drop must be compensated by a 100% increase. The bigger the drop, the bigger the increase must follow. At 80%, a 500% increase must compensate for the drop. If a company has risen 100%, everyone is stunned by what a price surge it has taken, the only question is where it started.
📌In practice: I heard at an investor meeting the other day that when the stock market crashes, you should buy a double leveraged index ETF. It's okay if someone buys something like that, just remember two things:
- ✨Leveraged products are priced at the end of the day! This means that they do not track the S&P 500 index with double the standard deviation, but with a larger deviation.
- ✨The risk of a downward price drop increases compared to the upward profit!
To illustrate the second problem with an example, if a stock falls 25%, it would take a 33% increase to reach the same price level, a difference of 8%. The same would be true for a double leverage of 50% and 100%, or a 50% difference, so the risk of a fall is much greater than the risk of a rise. Based on this, it is very rarely worth buying a leveraged S&P 500 ETF.
S&P 500: summary
The S&P 500 index is not very different from other stock market indices, but there are differences. If you only hear the word index, then there is a good chance that you are talking about the S&P 500 index, since the American stock market is most often referred to, and its most well-known indicator is the S&P 500 index. However, despite appearances, this cannot be interpreted in such a way, there are countless pitfalls of superficial observation. So much so that this did not even fit into an article, so in addition to today's article, for the sake of the full picture, it is worth reading my other article about stock market indices, which you can find here: Stock market index meaning and usage (2025).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
📊S&P 500 comparison
Comparing the S&P 500 to other stock market indices (e.g. Dow Jones, Nasdaq) or regions (e.g. STOXX Europe 600) provides an opportunity to understand how the large-cap segment of the US stock market is performing globally. While the S&P 500 is capitalization-based and broad-based, the Dow Jones is more of an industry representation and the Nasdaq is technology-focused. Therefore, the comparison often yields interesting results.
❓What does S&P 500 mean?
The S&P 500 is an American stock index that tracks the performance of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States. The name comes from the financial services company “Standard & Poor's,” which maintains the index. The S&P 500 is one of the most important benchmarks for investors, as it provides a broad picture of the state of the American economy.
🏦What does S&P mean?
S&P is the abbreviation for Standard & Poor's, a leading credit rating and financial services company. S&P not only produces indices, but also credit ratings for countries, companies, and various financial instruments, such as bonds. The S&P 500 is one of its most well-known indices.
📈What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is an American stock index calculated based on the weighted average of the stock prices of 30 large industrial companies. It is one of the oldest and best-known indices, but because it only contains 30 companies, it is less representative than, for example, the S&P 500.
🧮What does float mean? What does it mean in stocks?
Float refers to shares that are freely traded on the market, meaning they are not tied to internal management, founders, or strategic investors. The higher the float, the more liquid the stock is and the easier it is to trade on the stock exchange.
💰What is the meaning of capitalization?
Market capitalization shows the total value of a company based on the current price of its shares and the number of shares outstanding. For example, a company with 100 million shares outstanding, priced at $10 per share, has a market capitalization of $1 billion.
🦊The meaning of opportunistic? What does opportunistic share buyback mean?
Opportunistic behavior refers to the behavior of someone seeking to gain personal advantage by exploiting opportunities, even at the expense of others. Opportunistic share repurchases are when a company buys back its own shares when they are undervalued in the market, which can increase shareholder value in the long run.
💼 S&P 500 investment, how can you invest in the index at the same time?
The easiest way to invest in the S&P 500 is through an ETF or index fund, such as the well-known SPY or VOO ETFs, provided you are a US tax resident. Europeans must buy UCITS ETFs, such as the one with the VUAA identifier. These precisely track the composition of the index, so you can invest in hundreds of stocks with a single transaction.
📉 What is the average return of the S&P 500 ETF?
The long-term average annual return for the S&P 500 ETF has historically been around 6-7% after inflation, and around 10-11% in gross terms. The exact figure varies from period to period, but over the long term, returns have remained stable and strong.
💹 What is the average price of the SP500?
The “average” of the S&P 500 price can only be interpreted in conjunction with a time interval. For example, over the past 5 years, the index has fluctuated between 2200 and 6300 points. Its mathematical average may therefore be somewhere around 4250 points, but as an investor, it is the trend and the return that are interesting, not the simple average of the price.
Which broker should I choose to buy shares?
There are several aspects to consider when choosing a broker - we will write a complete article about this - but I would like to highlight a few that are worth considering:
- size, reliability: The bigger a broker, the safer it is. Those with a banking background – Erste, K&H, Charles Schwab, etc. – are even better, and well-known brokers are typically more reliable.
- expenditures: Brokers operate with various costs, such as the account management fee, the portfolio fee - which is the worst cost -, the purchase/sale fee and the currency exchange cost (if USD is not deposited in the brokerage account)
- Availability of instruments: It doesn't matter which broker has which market available, or whether they add the given instrument upon request and how quickly.
- account type: cash or margin account, the latter can only be used for options. For Hungarian tax residents, having a TBSZ account is important, but citizens of other countries also have special options – such as the American 401K retirement savings account – which are either supported by the broker or not.
- surface: is one of the most underrated aspects, and it can be a real pain. Anyone who had an account with Random Capital, a now-defunct Hungarian broker, knows what it's like to work on a platform left over from the 90s. Erste's system is lousy slow, Interactive Brokers requires a flight test, and LightYear believes in simple but modern solutions.
Based on the above, I recommend the Interactive Brokers account because:
- the world's largest broker with a strong background
- a few million instruments are available on it, and shares listed on multiple markets – e.g. both the original and the ADR – of a single share are often available
- Interactive Brokers a discount broker, they have the lowest prices on the market
- you can link your Wise account to them, from which you can quickly transfer money
- Morningstar's analyses are available for free under the fundamental explorer (good for analysis)
- EVA framework data is available under fundamental explorer (useful for analysis)
- they have both cash and margin accounts, Hungarian citizens can open a TBSZ
- you can use three types of interfaces: there is a web and PC client and a phone application
Legal and liability statement (aka. disclaimer): my articles contain personal opinions, I write them solely for my own entertainment and that of my readers. The articles published here do NOT in any way exhaust the scope of investment advice. I have never intended, do not intend, and am unlikely to provide such in the future. What is written here is for informational purposes only and should NOT be construed as an offer. The expression of opinion is NOT in any way considered a guarantee to sell or buy financial instruments. You are SOLELY responsible for the decisions you make, and no one else, including me, assumes the risk.
