General Motors being added to the S&P 500 at the close on June 6th (replacing Heinz ) is more good news for GM, as the stock orbits a two year high in early Wall Street dealings. GM May sales were up 3.1 percent. May light vehicle seasonally adjusted annual rates are now at 15.3 million, well above last year's numbers (13.9 million). and even better than April's 14.9 million.
There was also strong demand for pickup trucks...particularly at Ford, where sales were up 14 percent. It's hard to believe, but pickup trucks are now almost 14 percent of total vehicle sales. Why?
Pickup trucks do well when certain parts of the U.S. economy show improvement: in this case, it's housing/construction, oil and gas. Those groups are big buyers of pickup trucks.
One other point: adding GM will beef up the Consumer Discretionary sector of the S&P 500 Index and reduce the Consumer Staples sector that Heinz was part of.