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By Claudia Assis

Strategy gets snubbed again - but this time it has company

A Carvana used-car "vending machine" in Indianapolis. Shares of Carvana zoomed more than 10% after news of its inclusion in the S&P 500 index.

Carvana and two other companies will join the S&P 500 in about two weeks, S&P Dow Jones Indices said late Friday - dashing the hopes of those investors who expected bigger tech names or a crypto giant to get the honors this time around.

Shares of Carvana (CVNA) rallied more than 10% in after-hours trading Friday.

Joining the online used-car retailer on the premier U.S. stock-market index SPX are building-materials maker CRH (CRH) as well as Comfort Systems USA (FIX), which provides mechanical and electrical services for commercial and industrial buildings. Shares of CRH and Comfort Systems rose 7% and 1%, respectively, in Friday's extended session.

The changes are scheduled to be in place before the market open on Monday, Dec. 22, S&P Dow Jones Indices said. A place in the S&P 500 is a coveted spot for companies as it exposes their shares to a much broader range of investors, including passive funds that track the equity benchmark and actively managed funds that may have restrictions on where they can invest.

The moves are part of a regularly scheduled quarterly rebalance for the index. Contenders for joining the S&P 500 included bitcoin-treasury company Strategy (MSTR), chip maker Marvell Technology (MRVL) and social-media platform Reddit (RDDT).

It was another snub for Strategy, the software company formerly known as MicroStrategy that has become a play on bitcoin (BTCUSD). Last week, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Sandisk (SNDK), a maker of computer-storage devices, was moving to the S&P 500. That change took place days after the announcement.

The index provider has discretion in choosing when and how to make any changes, or even to forgo changes, besides the regularly scheduled rebalances.

Other changes announced Friday included flooring-materials maker Mohawk Industries (MHK) joining the S&P Small Cap 600 index SML and social-media company Pinterest (PINS) moving up to the S&P MidCap 400 index MID.

Carvana's stock has doubled this year, and the company is viewed as a "true disruptor" of the auto-retailing industry, with room to grow market share in a fragmented sector. Competition from the likes of Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Autos is viewed as being far off in the future, if it all.

See also: Carvana survived a debt crunch. Can it survive Amazon?

-Claudia Assis

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