Large Cap - Big Cap

See: Dow Jones Wilshire Large-Cap Index.

Large cap = "large market capitalization companies." Nope, they don't wear oversize Stetsons. They are usually big companies with lots of shares and lots of dollars per share. See: Market Capitalization. See: Shares Outstanding.

The valuation of a company runs, more or less, such that you take the total shares outstanding and just multiply them by the stock price. So if you have a company with a billion shares outstanding, trading at 20 bucks a share, then investors paying the $20 are valuing that company at $20 billion. If the stock goes to $50 and the total share count doesn't change, then...what? Well, now it's valued at $50 billion.

In normal mutual fund parlance, stocks are divided into 3 categories: small cap, from about a billion to 10 billion bucks in valuation; mid-cap from 10 to about 40; and then large cap stocks from there to a tril or so. Them's the big boys 'n' girls.