At the end of the day today, Facebook officially becomes part of the S&P 500 index. This might seem to fall under the category of trivia for Facebook shareholders, but it actually might be kind of a big deal. Many index funds are invested in the S&P 500; the venerable Vanguard 500, which is wholly invested in the S&P, is still one of the biggest mutual funds in the world. Facebook’s entrance into the index means its stock is going to get bought up by all those funds.
Facebook is now planning to sell more stock to satisfy the needs of index funds - a new offering of a whopping $39 billion. They're not the first company to execute such a plan: Back in July, when GM re-entered the S&P 500, the company issued a similar special stock offering.
But there’s also a question of how much more of a pop Facebook’s stock can get. The share price has more than doubled already this year. We'll see if there's much more juice in it today.
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