Google is up nearly one percent today on the back of news that it has set a date for trading on the S&P 500 Index. The Standard & Poors 500 Index is the United States' — and arguably the world's — most prestigious index, composed of publicly held giants selected for liquidity and as representative of the main U.S. industries. An announcement by AFP states that Google will be set to join the index after March 31st.

"The listing of a company on Standard and Poor's 500 index usually increases the value of that company's shares," writes Niladri Sekhar Nath, a TMC contributing editor. "According to AFP, the announcement has enhanced Google share prices in electronic trading after the market closed. Google shares gained 7.4 percent to $367.11."

The announcement lends credibility to recent claims by Wall Street analyst Mark Stahlman that Google may have something more ambitious in mind than their current status as an online search engine and seek to enter financial services and/or healthcare, as the kind of ongoing revenue growth that is familiar to S&P 500 companies will be difficult to sustain given the current business model, which is based purely around online advertising. It may also signal that Google is serious about making a large acquisition or entering a merger with a similar-sized company.

The S&P 500 has been rampant with M&A activity since BellSouth merged with AT&T in a $67 billion deal, and Lucent Technology is currently the subject of buyout speculation by Alcatel.

A web-based docu-film prediction, called EPICis gaining widespread popularity amidst the current Google furore: the documentary claims, amongst other things, that Google will have acquired TiVO and sent the New York Times offline by the year 2014.