The S&P 500 is gearing up for a rebuild: which companies will make the move to the "big leagues"?

Construction company CRH, data center equipment maker Vertiv Holdings, biotech Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and investment firm Ares Management are prime candidates for inclusion in the S&P 500 Index during its quarterly review in December, Barron's writes.

This list of four companies was compiled by KBW analyst Shreyank Gandhi. The corporations he selected are some of the largest corporations in the market that are not in the S&P 500. These are the kinds of companies that S&P Dow Jones Indices often pops its S&P 500 index during its revisions, Barron's notes. S&P Dow Jones Indices will announce new possible changes in the composition of the benchmark on December 5.

Other candidates for inclusion in the S&P 500, according to Gandhi, are online used car retailer Carvana, engineering and construction systems provider Ferguson Enterprises, liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy, South Korean e-commerce platform Coupang, investment firm Coupang and fintech platform with digital banking services SoFi Technologies.

- CRH is the largest of this group by market capitalization, about $80 billion, and one of the leading suppliers of construction materials, including crushed stone and cement.

- Ares is a leading alternative asset management company and a key player in the private credit market. In recent years, there have already been similar corporations like Blackstone and KKR in the S&P 500.

- Vertiv is a sought-after manufacturer of cooling systems for data centers.

- Carvana is one of the largest used car retailers that nearly closed a few years ago.

- Alnylam is an innovative biotech.

The minimum market value required for inclusion in the S&P 500 is $22.7 billion. Dow Jones Indices, which oversees the index, does not disclose any other reasons for selecting companies for its benchmark. Most often corporations with market capitalization between $50 billion and $75 billion are included in the S&P 500, Barron's notes.

The S&P 500 is rebalanced every quarter, which is often accompanied by additions and deletions of companies from the index. During the September rebalance, three new companies were added to the index: online broker Robinhood Markets, mobile advertising and gaming platform AppLovin, and engineering and construction company Emcor. Since then, Robinhood Markets' securities have added more than 20%. AppLovin is up nearly 30%, and Emcor shares jumped 25% at one point, but then corrected and are now trading around their September levels.

In November, it was announced that memory chip maker SanDisk would be added to the S&P 500 Index, moving there from the S&P SmallCap Index. This comes after SanDisk's stock has quadrupled since the company's exit from Western Digital in early 2025.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor