This is not correct. According to wikipedia, the s and p (for example) has eight criteria: market capitalization, liquidity, domicile, public float, sector cla

This is not correct. According to wikipedia, the s and p (for example) has eight criteria: market capitalization, liquidity, domicile, public float, sector classification, financial viability, and length of time publicly traded and stock exchange. Market cap and liquidity are determined entirely by active traders. Domicile, public float and sector classification are more negative criteria than positives. They exclude a company from the index for not meeting them, but by themselves are not reason for inclusion. Many american companies meet them. The same applies to length of time traded. That leaves only one criterion, financial viability. Meanwhile, the purpose of the index is to track the performance of the 500 largest companies. That's market cap, determined entirely by the price of shares outstanding multiplied by their number.