Large-Cap Stock
A large-cap stock is a share of a company with a large market capitalization, generally in the tens of billions of dollars or more.
Large-cap stocks belong to the biggest publicly traded companies. There is no official cutoff, but in the US the term usually refers to companies worth at least around $10 billion, and index providers set their own thresholds that are adjusted over time. Very large companies are sometimes called mega-caps.
Large-cap companies tend to be well-established, with long operating histories, broad customer bases and access to financing. Many pay dividends. Their stocks are typically very liquid and are followed closely by analysts, so information about them is widely available.
Because they are already big, large caps may grow more slowly than smaller companies. Their share prices have historically tended to be somewhat less volatile than those of small caps, although they can still fall sharply in bear markets.
The S&P 500 is the most widely followed benchmark for US large-cap stocks. Many index funds and ETFs track it, which is one reason large caps make up a big part of many investors' portfolios.
Example: a company with 1 billion shares trading at $80 has a market cap of $80 billion and would clearly count as a large cap.