Fast tracking means that the market likely wont have enough time to find the settled price (especially with the knowledge that passive funds are about to buy), and including a mispriced thing does not necessarily make the benchmark more accurate.
SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are all giga-caps preparing to IPO, and none of them will be eligible for S&P inclusion because of the 12-month profitability requirement. At current valuations, all are part of the top 20 largest companies in the US. These companies may be excluded from the S&P500 for potentially years, until they reach 12 months of profitability.
And you are vastly overstating the effect of S&P500 fast track inclusion, the plan was to reduce it from 12 months to 6 months; which is more than enough time for the market to find a price.
> And you are vastly overstating the effect of S&P500 fast tracking, the plan was to reduce it from 12 months to 6 months; which is more than enough time for the market to find a price.
They might never reach 6 months of profitability, let alone 12 months.
The price markets find would still inevitably be influence by the knowledge that the demand would increase massively in a few months.
> inclusion criteria reward companies that prioritize profit over growth
Or stable and sustainable growth. Whatever else SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic valuations are price in extremely optimistic growth. But yeah, I do see a point that including adequately priced growth stocks could be a net benefit but of course accouting for the actual valuation would turn index funds into managed ones.
Thankfully its not an issue at all since there is Nasdaq 100.
What's the downside for the average pension holder with a 30 year horizon if they miss 6 months of Elon's newest scheme?