Garmin Shares Leap 6% After S&P 500 Promotion

Shares of GPS specialist Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) rose 6 percent Thursday ahead of the company's inclusion in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index as of Dec. 11.

At the close, shares of the Swiss-based GPS provider were up $2.19 to $41.97 after touching $42.19 earlier in the session. S&P said Garmin will replace printer R.R. Donnelly (NASDAQ:RRD), which will move to the S&P MidCap 400 Index.

Such moves usually benefit a company because it makes the shares more appealing to professional money managers at mutual and pension funds who may only purchase shares that are part of a major index.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), the No. 1 social networking site, is to be added to the Nasdaq 100 next week, Nasdaq OMX Group (NASDAQ:NDAQ) said late Tuesday. Since then, shares of the Menlo Park, Calif., company have risen about 40 cents after an earlier surge.

Facebook shares closed at $26.97, down 74 cents.

U.S. shares of Garmin's Dutch Rival, TomTom (PINK:TMOAF), rose a penny to $5.01 while shares of Finnish phone maker Nokia (NYSE:NOK), which acquired rival Navteq in 2007 for $8.1 billion, fell 13 cents to $3.75.