SPY (top S&P500 fund) has $700B assets under management.
VTI (Vanguard Total ETF) is $600B + VTSAX (Vanguard Total Index Admiral) is $489B. QQQ is another $480B AUM.
So we're easily talking about $Trillion++ for funds that are described by this post. (VTI, VTSA, QQQ alone). With dozens and dozens of more funds that are participating in this whole "passively buy stocks" scheme being discussed.
> So even though SpaceX would be a $1.75 trillion company, many index funds that include it would have to treat it like a $70 billion company. In Vanguard's total-market ETF, then, SPCX would enjoy a similar weight as $73 billion retailer Ross Stores (ROST) — currently the 157th-largest stock in VTI, accounting for about 0.1% of its assets.
So someone with $10,000 of VTI might have $10 of SPCX. Not a big loss for them even if it went to zero, and the whole point of that index is to have some of everything.
VTI arguably because they must play along, being a "total market fund". Nasdaq changed their rules and then force bought 3x more than usual.
These are NOT small funds. Rather significant parts of the US Economy (VTI, QQQ, among many other ETFs and derivatives) were force-bought in last week, and we are now all in for the ride to watch that portion of our money disappear.
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S&P500 is an important player who managed to avoid SPCX (1 year rule + requirements of profitability, of which SPCX isn't profitable yet so... lots of disqualifications here). So we have to give credit where credit is due.
VTI / Vanguard Total Market is a grey case. I once believed in it but now with SPCX and other abusers (Anthropic and OpenAI) clearly aiming to specifically screw VTI's strategy over, it might be finally time to call it quits and leave VTI behind. I don't know for what though.
Nasdaq doubling down and specifically changing their rules to help this whole crap is the ultimate level of disgusting. VTI is just being consistent with their strategy. Nasdaq is making special exceptions explicitly for these cases.
The VTI fund tracks the CRSP Index which is administered by Morningstar, in the same way SPY is a fund managed by State Street but tracks the S&P 500 which is created by S&P Dow Jones Indices. So, it’s simply inaccurate to describe Vanguard as doing anything in this instance, besides licensing the same index they always have for their VTI fund.
Everyone else has dodged this bullet. I'm surprised, pleasantly, that S&P et al actually made the right choice here.