what does standard and poor s mean 
standard poor s s p is a company a leading index provider and data source of independent credit ratings the name comes from the 1941 merger of two financial data publications henry varnum poor s publication on railroad prices dating back to 1860 and the standard statistics bureau which was founded in 1906 sometimes a reference to standard poor s can also mean the company s most famous index the s p 500 which tracks the performance of the 500 largest public companies in the u s 2