Facebook shares will be added to the Dow Jones S&P 500 Index, a portfolio of stocks considered a barometer of the market and even the overall US economy.

The world’s leading online social network will replace chip-testing equipment company Teradyne after the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on December 20, S&P Dow Jones Indices said on Wednesday in a release.

Facebook shares rose nearly four per cent to top $US51 in after-market trades on Wednesday.

Being added to the S&P 500 comes at the end of a year in which Facebook climbed out from the wreckage of its much-hyped but quickly panned stock market debut early in 2012.

Facebook has been on an upward cycle since earnings showed a jump in mobile advertising revenue.

Facebook shares plummeted after the highly anticipated IPO last year and languished, primarily because of doubts about the California-based company’s ability to make money from members using mobile devices to get online.

Facebook, based in the northern California city of Menlo Park, will be added to an S&P software and services category in the index.