Overview

• The latest S&P 500 additions are AppLovin, Robinhood and Emcor, with Strategy not selected despite widespread expectations.
• Strategy meets the index’s technical screens for size, liquidity and profitability, but the committee weighs qualitative factors such as sector balance and business-model comparability.
• Market researchers highlight Strategy’s unusually high share volatility, with a beta near 3.8, and earnings that move with bitcoin prices.
• Under newly adopted fair-value accounting, Strategy booked roughly $10 billion of unrealized bitcoin gains as profit last quarter, illustrating the GAAP swings that concern some observers.
• Inclusion would likely prompt about $16 billion of passive buying—an estimated 50 million shares—and the company could still be considered in December or if pending corporate deals open a slot.