MUMBAI: News Corporations Class A stock was included in the S&P 500 index at the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Friday (17 December).

This comes in the wake of the company changing its place of incorporation from Australia to the United States last month.

News Corporations Class A and Class B stock have had their primary listings on the NYSE since the reincorporation occurred on 12 November. The companys stocks also have secondary listings on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

The S&P 500 Index is a representative sample of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the US economy. It is a market-value weighted index (stock price multiplied by number of shares outstanding), with each stock's weight in the index proportionate to its market value. The S&P 500 is one of the most widely used benchmarks of US equity performance and is held broadly by US and international index funds. According to Standard and Poors, the Index represents more than $1 trillion in indexed assets.

News Corporation had total assets as of 30 September, 2004 of approximately $52 billion and total annual revenues of approximately $22 billion.