S&P 500
IndexS&P 500 EPS: $292.59 trailing 12 months · +27.5% YoY
The S&P 500 earned $292.59 per index point over the twelve months through Aug 2026 — as-reported, straight from members' SEC filings. Against the index at Aug 18, 2026 that is a P/E of 26.3. The last completed year, 2025, earned $241.64 (+9.7%). In today's dollars the same trailing earnings are $292.59 — identical, since “today” is the base, but every earlier year on the chart shrinks or grows once you strip inflation out.
Earnings per share, by year and by quarter#
The same series three ways — closed calendar years, individual quarters, and the whole monthly record since 1871 — in nominal or inflation-adjusted dollars.
| Year | EPS | YoY | P/E then |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (TTM) | $292.59 | +21.1% | 26.3× |
| 2025 | $241.64 | +9.7% | 28.4× |
| 2024 | $220.29 | +17.2% | 27.3× |
| 2023 | $187.90 | +8.8% | 24.9× |
| 2022 | $172.75 | -12.7% | 22.6× |
| 2021 | $197.87 | +110.2% | 23.6× |
| 2020 | $94.13 | -32.5% | 39.3× |
| 2019 | $139.47 | +5.3% | 22.8× |
| 2018 | $132.39 | +20.5% | 19.4× |
| 2017 | $109.88 | +16.2% | 24.2× |
| 2016 | $94.55 | +9.3% | 23.8× |
| 2015 | $86.53 | -15.4% | 23.7× |
| 2014 | $102.31 | +2.1% | 20.1× |
| 2013 | $100.20 | +15.8% | 18.0× |
| 2012 | $86.51 | -0.5% | 16.4× |
| 2011 | $86.95 | +12.4% | 14.3× |
| 2010 | $77.35 | +51.8% | 16.1× |
| 2009 | $50.97 | +242.5% | 21.8× |
| 2008 | $14.88 | -77.5% | 59.0× |
| 2007 | $66.18 | -18.8% | 22.4× |
| 2006 | $81.51 | +16.7% | 17.4× |
| 2005 | $69.83 | +19.3% | 18.1× |
| 2004 | $58.55 | +20.1% | 20.5× |
| 2003 | $48.74 | +76.7% | 22.2× |
| 2002 | $27.59 | +11.7% | 32.6× |
| 2001 | $24.69 | -50.6% | 46.4× |
| 2000 | $50.00 | +3.8% | 26.6× |
| 1999 | $48.17 | +27.7% | 29.7× |
| 1998 | $37.71 | -5.1% | 31.6× |
| 1997 | $39.72 | +2.6% | 24.2× |
Earnings per index point for each calendar year (nominal dollars), with the index's P/E at that year's close. The last row is the trailing twelve months through Aug 2026, not a finished year, and is marked with an asterisk on the chart.
FAQ#
- What is the S&P 500's EPS?
- $292.59 over the trailing twelve months through Aug 2026, +27.5% against a year earlier. That is earnings per index point: the members' combined profits expressed on the index's own scale, so dividing the index level by it gives the P/E of 26.3. The last completed calendar year, 2025, came in at $241.64.
- Why is index EPS a dollar figure when the index is not a stock?
- Because an index is priced like one. The index level is its members' combined market value divided by a divisor, and index EPS is their combined earnings divided by the same divisor — so the two are on one scale and their ratio is the P/E you would quote for any share. A level of one point costs whatever it costs and earns $2.93 per hundred points of index.
- Is this operating EPS or as-reported EPS?
- As-reported — net income exactly as filed with the SEC, with no add-backs for restructuring, impairments or stock compensation. As-reported EPS is lower and more volatile than the 'operating' EPS most headlines quote, so a P/E computed against it looks higher. Both are legitimate; mixing them is not, which is why every multiple on this site uses this one.
- How fast does the S&P 500's EPS grow?
- 12.7% a year over the last decade in nominal terms, 9.2% after inflation. Over the very long run nominal EPS growth has run around 4–5% a year — roughly nominal GDP — but it arrives in bursts separated by collapses, not in a straight line: switch the chart to 'Since 1871' to see how little of the record looks like a trend.
- Where does the history come from?
- Robert Shiller's long-run as-reported series through Jul 2023, and from there our own: each quarter's combined SEC-filed earnings over the members' combined market value, times the index level. The two constructions overlap at the seam and agree there within a quarter of a percent, with no scaling applied — which is the reason to trust either. Quarterly detail starts in 2009, where our member price and share-count history begins.
Method & related#
EPS here is aggregate as-reported net income over the index divisor, and the divisor MOVES: it is implied at every quarter from the members' own market value, so retiring shares lifts earnings per point the way it does for a single company. Both sums run over today's membership — no point-in-time membership archive exists — which biases each of them, but it is their ratio that sets EPS, and the two biases largely cancel. The dollar totals behind all of this are on S&P 500 earnings; what the market pays for them is the P/E ratio, drawn against fixed multiples on valuation bands, and smoothed over ten years on Shiller CAPE. Not investment advice.
ChartRow is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, S&P Global, or Nasdaq, Inc. "S&P 500®" and "Dow Jones®" are registered trademarks of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC; "Nasdaq-100®" is a registered trademark of Nasdaq, Inc. They are used here only to identify the indexes discussed. All index-related figures on this page are independently derived from public sources — SEC filings, Robert Shiller's public dataset, and our own computations — not from any index provider's data feed.