Standard & Poor's/BARRA Growth and Value Indexes

Some investors favor growth stocks while others favor value stocks. Since 1992, results of those investment styles, which tend to produce different returns over time, have been tracked separately by the Standard & Poor's/BARRA Growth and Value Indexes.

To create the indexes, about half the 1,500 companies tracked in the S&P equity indexes are assigned to the value index and about half to the growth index, based on book-to-price ratio, or the book value of a stock divided by its market capitalization.

The value index includes companies with higher book-to-price ratios, and the growth index includes companies with lower ratios. Both indexes are rebalanced and adjusted on a regular schedule to reflect changes in the stocks' market capitalizations and in the underlying S&P indexes.