The Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS) share price is on the move on Monday morning.
At the time of writing, the lithium miner's shares are up 2.5% to $4.98.
This means the Pilbara Minerals share price is now up over 40% since the start of 2022.
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Why is the Pilbara Minerals share price pushing higher?
Investors have been buying this lithium miner's shares this morning for a couple of reasons.
The first is a positive night of trade for lithium shares on Wall Street on Friday. This saw the likes of Albemarle Corporation, Livent Corp, and Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile record solid gains during the session.
Also giving the Pilbara Minerals share price a boost today has been the release of the quarterly index rebalance update from S&P Dow Jones Indices.
That update revealed that Pilbara Minerals will be promoted to the illustrious ASX 50 index when indices next rebalance on 19 December. It will join the index at the expense of engineering company Lendlease Group (ASX: LLC).
This wasn't overly surprising. With the Lendlease share price down by almost a third this year, its market capitalisation was the lowest in the ASX 50 index. Whereas Pilbara Minerals' market capitalisation has ascended to a level that puts it firmly in the top 50 companies listed on the Australian share market.
Is this good news?
This could be good news for the Pilbara Minerals share price as it potentially opens the company up to fund managers with strict investment mandates that only allow them to invest in shares in the ASX 50 index.
And while Mineral Resources Limited (ASX: MIN) is also in the blue chip index, Pilbara Minerals is the only pureplay lithium share in it. This could make it popular with any fund managers wanting exposure to the decarbonisation megatrend.
