Okta joins the list of America's 500 biggest companies. Will December add more?
Okta, a US software company, joins the S&P 500, the list of America's biggest companies, on 4 November. The list is next reviewed in early December.
What happened
S&P Dow Jones Indices said Okta will replace Kenvue in the S&P 500 before trading opens on Wednesday , because Kimberly-Clark is buying Kenvue.
Okta joins the S&P 500 on . S&P Dow Jones Indices, the company that runs this index of large US companies, said on that Okta will replace Kenvue before trading opens that day. Kimberly-Clark, already in the index, is buying Kenvue in a deal “expected to be completed soon”. Okta, a technology company, moves up from the S&P MidCap 400, S&P’s index of medium-sized companies.
Okta is the third company to join the S&P 500 early since . Vylor joined on , when Corteva split it off as a separate company. Twilio replaced Warner Bros. Discovery on , because Paramount Skydance is buying Warner Bros. Discovery. Each time one company came in for one that was leaving.
The next regular review comes in December. Four times a year S&P moves companies in and out of its indexes by size, and S&P names this the quarterly rebalance. In 2026 it announced the June review on Friday and the September review on Friday , each two weeks before the third Friday of the month, with the changes taking effect on the Monday after. June added Marvell Technology and Flex, and September added Bloom Energy, Illumina and Everpure. December’s third Friday is , so the release would come on Friday if S&P keeps to this habit.
The changes ensure that each index is more representative of its market capitalization range.
S&P Dow Jones Indices, quarterly rebalance,
Sources: S&P Dow Jones Indices (2, 3, 4)
The Pattern
We looked for cases where S&P ran its regular quarterly review of the S&P 500 after at least two companies had already joined early in the same quarter. We started in , the first review S&P announced two weeks ahead. We found nine such reviews from 2019 to 2026, and counted how many companies each review added.
Show the other 7 cases
Biogen will remain in the S&P 500.
The Read
The past leans towards at least one new member in December. Each of the five reviews since 2023 in this list added two or three companies. S&P says it makes these changes so that each index stays in its size range, and the early joiners do not use up December places, because each one replaced a company that was leaving. None of the nine added four or more. S&P did add four at once in and , after quarters when fewer companies had joined early.
There are reasons for doubt. Each time it was the same committee at S&P deciding. S&P’s archive has no review release for , and , three quarters in which two or three companies had joined early. If those reviews changed nothing, empty reviews were more common than the nine show. Outside the reviews, S&P also keeps adding companies when a member is bought or split: in ten of the last eleven years it named at least one such new member between early November and the end of December.
Sources: S&P Dow Jones Indices (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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