Microsoft's big weighting makes it a unique stock in the S & P 500's "4% Club"

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Microsoft
of the
returning to its place as the most valuable company in the S & P 500 – currently worth $ 988 billion – coincided with another statistical feat.

In April, the software giant (symbol: MSFT) was the only company to hold a 4% weighting in the broad market index, said Friday the independent investment company The Leuthold Group. This means that stock price movements in Microsoft push the index higher or lower than similar moves of any other company.

Microsoft is not the first to be part of the so-called 4% club. According to Leuthold, a handful of companies have been members at one time or another since 1990:
Apple

(AAPL)
Cisco Systems

(CSCO)
Exxon Mobil

(XOM), and
General Electric

(GE).

It's not easy to stay on the list. Microsoft and Apple have reached the magic threshold, escaped and found it – the only companies to do it.

Like many other software programs, Microsoft soared in the late 1990s to dive at the beginning of this century. It did not exceed the market capitalization reached in the $ 600 billion technology bubble until September 2017, after management focused more on management software and cloud computing, according to Leuthold analyst, Phil Segner.

The company has stopped focusing exclusively on the Windows operating system under the authority of the CEO, Satya Nadella, who took over in 2014.

Microsoft surpassed the $ 1 trillion mark of market value for the first time in late April after announcing better-than-expected financial results, highlighted by a 73 percent increase in sales of its IT business. Azure cloud compared to the previous year. Paid subscriptions for software such as Office 365 are also increasing.

Microsoft shares have risen 28% this year.

Apple left the club 4% in November. It had a float-adjusted weight of 3.66% in the S & P 500 at the end of April, said Segner Barron in an email.

According to Segner, at the height of the tech bubble, Microsoft spent 12 months in the club of 4%, with a weighting of 4.9% at the end of 1999. Over the next year, its market capitalization has dropped by 60% crash.

Write to Jon Swartz at [email protected]