By Noel Randewich
(Reuters) – Tesla Inc is set to join the S&P 500 in December, a major win for Chief Executive Elon Musk and his shareholders, triggering a massive $51 billion trade as index funds are forced to buy the electric car maker’s shares.
Shares of Tesla surged 12% on Monday in extended trade after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that the company would join the S&P 500 index prior to the opening of trading on Dec. 21.
“(Tesla) will be one of the largest weight additions to the S&P 500 in the last decade, and consequently will generate one of the largest funding trades in S&P 500 history,” S&P Dow Jones Indices said.
With a market capitalization over $380 billion, Tesla is one of the most valuable companies on Wall Street.
Tesla’s inclusion in the widely followed stock market index means investment funds indexed to the S&P 500 will have to sell about $51 billion worth of shares of companies already in the S&P 500 and use that money to buy shares of Tesla, so that their portfolios correctly reflect the index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Tesla will account for about 1% of the index.
In a separate press release, S&P Dow Jones Indices asked investors for feedback on whether to include Tesla all at once on Dec. 21, or in two tranches, with the first added a week earlier, due to Tesla’s unusually large market capitalization.
A blockbuster quarterly report in July cleared a major hurdle for Tesla’s potential inclusion.
(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Leslie Adler, Peter Cooney and Aurora Ellis)
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