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Big Tech's share of the S&P 500 reached record level in August

28 September 2020
Dan Ackermann
Reproduced from The Leuthold Group; Chart: Axios Visuals

The gap between the weighting of the five largest companies in the S&P 500 and the 300 smallest rose to the highest ever at the end of August, according to data from the Leuthold Group.

Why it matters: The concentration of wealth in a few massive U.S. tech companies has reached a scale significantly greater than it was before the dot-com bubble burst.

  • In August, five companies — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet — held a share of the S&P 500 that was 9% greater by market cap than the index's 300 smallest companies. This was a record amount.

What they're saying: "These trillion-dollar tech juggernauts have boosted their market-cap weight in 11 of the past 12 months — zooming from 15.8% of the S&P 500 last September, to 23.9% in August," Phil Segner, a Leuthold Group research analyst, said in a recent note to clients.

  • "What’s even more remarkable is that this trend has persisted during a 33% downdraft and a 60% updraft. September’s relative wobble in the 'Top 5' has trimmed its weight back to 21.7%, which is the largest month-to-month decline since 2000."
  • "Even with the trim, the current weight of the S&P 500’s Top 5 is still well above the Tech Bubble’s high of 18.1%."

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.