S&P 500

3M is a diversified industrial conglomerate with over 60,000 products used in electronics, healthcare, industrial manufacturing and consumer goods. Founded in 1902 in Minnesota, its inventions include Post-it Notes, Scotch tape and N95 respirators. 3M has faced significant legal liability over PFAS chemical contamination and military earplugs, leading to billion-dollar settlements. It spun off its healthcare division as Solventum in 2024.

AbbVie is a global biopharmaceutical company that spun off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013. Its blockbuster drug Humira held the title of world's best-selling medicine for many years before patent expiry. AbbVie has built a diversified portfolio through the acquisition of Allergan, adding Botox and other aesthetics products, as well as developing new immunology and oncology drugs such as Skyrizi and Rinvoq.

Adobe is the world's leading creative software company, best known for Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and the PDF format. Founded in 1982 in San Jose, California, it completed a successful transition from perpetual licences to a cloud subscription model (Creative Cloud). Its Digital Experience division also serves enterprises with marketing analytics tools. A landmark deal to acquire Figma collapsed under antitrust pressure in 2024.

Alphabet is the parent company of Google, the world's dominant search engine, and a portfolio of other businesses including YouTube, Google Cloud, Waymo (autonomous vehicles), DeepMind and Verily. Founded in 2015 as a restructuring of Google — itself created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford in 1998 — Alphabet generates the vast majority of its revenue through online advertising.

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is a leading semiconductor company best known for its Ryzen processors, EPYC server chips and Radeon graphics cards. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, it has gained significant market share from Intel in PCs and data centres. Its acquisition of Xilinx in 2022 expanded its presence in FPGAs and adaptive computing, a key market for AI infrastructure.

Bank of America is the second-largest bank in the United States, serving around 68 million consumer and small business clients through some 4,000 branches and digital platforms. Founded in 1998 from the merger of BankAmerica and NationsBank, it provides retail banking, wealth management (Merrill Lynch), investment banking and markets services.

Berkshire Hathaway is the diversified holding company controlled by Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in history. Originally a textile manufacturer, it was transformed from the 1960s into a vast conglomerate owning businesses outright (BNSF Railway, GEICO insurance, Berkshire Hathaway Energy) and holding large equity stakes in Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola and American Express, among others.

Boeing is one of the world's two dominant commercial aircraft manufacturers, alongside Airbus. Founded in 1916 in Seattle, its flagship products include the 737 MAX, 787 Dreamliner and 777X. It also operates a large defence and space division. Following a series of safety and production crises, Boeing is working to restore confidence in its manufacturing quality and rebuild its order backlog.

Broadcom is a global technology company that designs and supplies a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. Its products include networking chips, wireless connectivity components, storage controllers and enterprise software from the CA Technologies and Symantec acquisitions. Its 2023 acquisition of VMware for 61 billion dollars made it a major player in enterprise virtualisation and cloud infrastructure.

Caterpillar is the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial turbines. Founded in 1925 from the merger of Holt Manufacturing and C.L. Best Tractor, its yellow machines are a global symbol of infrastructure investment. Caterpillar products are used in construction, mining, oil and gas, power generation and marine markets.

Chevron is one of the largest integrated energy companies in the world, with operations in oil and gas exploration, production, refining, chemicals and renewable energy. Headquartered in San Ramon, California, it has a major presence in the Permian Basin and is expanding into lower-carbon businesses such as renewable natural gas and hydrogen. It is a core holding in many dividend-income portfolios.

Coca-Cola is one of the world's most recognised brands, manufacturing and distributing soft drinks, juices, water and other beverages in more than 200 countries. Founded in Atlanta in 1886, it owns over 500 brands, including Fanta, Sprite, Minute Maid and Schweppes. Its franchised bottling model allows local partners to produce and distribute products, while Coca-Cola focuses on brand management and concentrate supply.

Costco Wholesale is the world's third-largest retailer, operating a chain of membership-only warehouse clubs. Founded in 1983 in Seattle, it sells merchandise in bulk at very low margins, earning most of its profit from membership fees. With stores across the US, Canada, UK, Japan, South Korea and other countries, it is renowned for its Kirkland Signature private-label range and fiercely loyal customer base.

Eli Lilly is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. Founded in 1876 in Indianapolis, Indiana, it has become the most valuable pharmaceutical company in the world thanks to its GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs Mounjaro (tirzepatide) and Zepbound. Its oncology and immunology pipelines are also strong, with additional blockbusters such as Verzenio (abemaciclib) for breast cancer.

ExxonMobil is the largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the United States and one of the biggest in the world. Created in 1999 from the merger of Exxon and Mobil, both heirs to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, it operates across the full energy chain: exploration, production, refining, petrochemicals and retail fuel. It is also expanding into carbon capture and hydrogen.

GE Aerospace (formerly General Electric) is one of America's most storied industrial companies, tracing its origins to Thomas Edison's companies in the 1890s. After a major restructuring that separated GE HealthCare and GE Vernova, the remaining entity focuses on jet engines and aviation systems, supplying aircraft manufacturers and airlines worldwide. GE engines power around 70 percent of commercial flights.

Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer, with nearly 2,400 stores across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Founded in 1978 in Atlanta, it sells building materials, tools, appliances and garden products to both DIY consumers and professional contractors. Its pro segment — serving tradespeople and builders — has become an increasingly important growth driver.

Intel is the world's largest semiconductor company by revenue and the inventor of the x86 processor architecture that powers most PCs and servers. Founded in 1968 in Mountain View, California by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, it dominated personal computing for decades. It is now pursuing an ambitious foundry strategy to manufacture chips for external customers and regain leadership in advanced semiconductor nodes.

Johnson & Johnson is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical and medical devices companies. Founded in 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, it produces prescription medicines, consumer health products (Tylenol, Band-Aid, Listerine) and surgical equipment. In 2023 it separated its consumer health division into a new company called Kenvue, focusing the core business on pharmaceuticals and MedTech.

JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States by assets and one of the most systemically important financial institutions in the world. Founded in 1799, it serves tens of millions of consumers, businesses and governments through its investment banking, commercial banking, financial services and asset management divisions. CEO Jamie Dimon has led the bank since 2005.

Mastercard is the world's second-largest payment network, operating in over 210 countries. Founded in 1966 as Interbank Card Association, it provides the infrastructure for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions, alongside fraud prevention and data analytics services. Like Visa, it does not lend money directly but earns fees from processing the volume and value of transactions on its network.

Merck & Co. (known as MSD outside North America) is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. Founded in 1891 in Rahway, New Jersey, its most notable recent product is Keytruda (pembrolizumab), the world's best-selling cancer immunotherapy drug. Merck also produces vaccines, including those for HPV and COVID-19 (Lagevrio), and has a large animal health division.

Meta Platforms is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, together reaching nearly four billion monthly active users. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard, the company has expanded beyond social networking into virtual reality (Meta Quest headsets), augmented reality and artificial intelligence research, positioning itself for a future in the spatial computing era.

Netflix is the world's leading streaming service, with over 260 million paid subscribers in more than 190 countries. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph as a DVD rental service, it pivoted to streaming in 2007 and to original content production around 2013. Its series and films — including Stranger Things, The Crown and Squid Game — have redefined television globally.

Nike is the world's leading sportswear brand, designing and marketing footwear, apparel and equipment for virtually every sport. Founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in Oregon, it markets products through iconic brand names such as Air Jordan and Nike Air Max. The company outsources most manufacturing to contract factories in Asia while maintaining strong brand equity through athlete sponsorships and marketing.

Oracle is one of the world's largest enterprise software companies, specialising in database management systems, cloud applications and cloud infrastructure. Founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates in Redwood City, California, its Oracle Database is the market-leading relational database. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is growing rapidly, boosted by AI workloads and contracts with major technology companies.

PayPal is a leading digital payments company operating one of the world's largest online payment networks. Founded in 1998 and spun off from eBay in 2015, it serves around 430 million active accounts globally through PayPal, Venmo and Braintree. It allows individuals and businesses to make and receive payments online, via mobile and in-store, and has expanded into buy-now-pay-later through its Pay Later service.

PepsiCo is a global food and beverage giant whose portfolio includes Pepsi, Lay's, Gatorade, Quaker, Tropicana and Doritos. Founded in 1965 from the merger of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay, it generates annual revenues of around 90 billion dollars. Roughly half of its sales come from food, making it less dependent on carbonated drinks than its rival Coca-Cola.

Procter & Gamble is one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, with a portfolio of brands including Pampers, Tide, Gillette, Oral-B, Head & Shoulders and Ariel. Founded in 1837 in Cincinnati, it markets its products in over 180 countries. P&G is known for disciplined brand management, innovation in household and personal care categories, and a strong dividend-growth track record.

The S&P 500 is the most widely followed equity benchmark in the world, tracking 500 large-cap companies listed on US stock exchanges. Created by Standard & Poor's in 1957, it covers approximately 80 percent of total US equity market capitalisation. It is the primary benchmark for US equity mutual funds and ETFs.

Salesforce is the world's number-one customer relationship management (CRM) software company. Founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff and Parker Harris in San Francisco, it pioneered the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Its platform helps businesses manage sales, customer service, marketing and commerce. Acquisitions of Tableau, MuleSoft and Slack have expanded its reach into data analytics and enterprise collaboration.

Tesla is an electric vehicle and clean energy company founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, later joined by Elon Musk. It manufactures the Model S, 3, X, Y and Cybertruck, and also produces energy storage systems (Powerwall, Megapack) and solar panels. Tesla operates its own Supercharger network and is developing full self-driving software, making it both a car manufacturer and a technology company.

Uber is the world's largest ride-sharing company and a major player in food delivery through Uber Eats. Founded in 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp in San Francisco, it operates in more than 70 countries and manages millions of daily trips. Uber has diversified into freight logistics (Uber Freight) and is investing in autonomous vehicle partnerships to prepare for a driverless future.

UnitedHealth Group is the largest health insurer in the United States and one of the world's biggest companies by revenue. It operates through two primary platforms: UnitedHealthcare, which provides health insurance to employers, individuals and government programmes, and Optum, a health services business offering pharmacy care, data analytics and healthcare delivery. It serves over 50 million people in the US.

Visa is the world's leading payment network, processing more than 200 billion transactions a year across over 200 countries. Founded in 1958 as BankAmericard, it does not issue cards itself but provides the infrastructure connecting banks, merchants and cardholders. Its VisaNet network handles the authorisation, clearing and settlement of electronic payments globally.

Walmart is the world's largest retailer by revenue, with more than 10,000 stores in 20 countries under 46 different banners. Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton in Rogers, Arkansas, it serves around 240 million customers weekly. Its e-commerce operations, including the acquisition of Flipkart in India, are growing rapidly alongside its traditional store network.

The Walt Disney Company is a global entertainment conglomerate whose brands span film studios (Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm), theme parks, the ESPN sports network and the Disney+ streaming service. Founded in 1923 by Walt and Roy Disney, it remains one of the most recognisable cultural institutions in the world. Disney+ reached 150 million subscribers within three years of launch.