Standard & Poor's (S&P) is a financial services firm which specializes in performing credit ratings and providing economic analysis, research and data. Included in this data are thousands of indices used to measure the performance of the stock market or some particular segment of the market, such as the S&P 500 which is a basket of 500 of the largest U.S. stocks, weighted by market capitalization.
While the value of these indexes are calculated and disseminated as the prices of stocks within change, they are not directly traded. Rather, there are other financial institutions which create products such as exchange traded funds, mutual funds and exchanges offering options, futures and options on futures intended to track the performance of these indices.
We offer a Contract Search Tool on our website, which may be helpful in searching for particular products where you know the symbol.