Two Ways to Slice the Same 500
The S&P 500 and its equal weight cousin own the same companies. What changes is how much of each you hold. The standard index is weighted by market value, so Apple commands roughly 7% on its own. The equal weight index caps everyone at about 0.20%, so Apple and a small regional bank count the same.
That single difference reshapes everything about risk. A cap-weighted portfolio rises and falls on the fortunes of a few mega-caps, while an equal weight portfolio spreads the same dollar across 500 names. Our RSP versus SPY comparison breaks down the fund-level details.
The 2026 Scoreboard
Through August 12, 2026, the equal weight approach was winning. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, ticker RSP, returned about 13.9% year to date, against about 11.6% for the standard S&P 500. The gap came from the top of the market dragging: Tesla sat down 28% and Meta down 10% for the year, and those giants hold far more sway in a cap-weighted index.
RSP still owns the Magnificent Seven, just at about 0.20% each rather than at a combined 34%. It is not immune to a big-tech slide, it is simply less exposed. The group is the subject of our Magnificent Seven explainer.
When Each Approach Wins
There is no permanent winner. Cap weighting shines in a narrow, mega-cap-led bull market, which is exactly what the mid-2020s delivered. Equal weight tends to lead when money rotates into the broader market, which is the scenario Larry Benedict’s Project 2026 thesis forecasts from the Section 232 and Section 301 trade reviews.
The same logic about concentration shows up beyond stocks. Our AI market crash analysis looks at how a handful of AI names have come to dominate the index and what that means if sentiment turns.
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