S&P 500 P/E ratio: 26.1
The S&P 500 trades at 26.1× trailing 12-month earnings (as of market close, Oct 20, 2026) — ChartRow's estimate of the index level from SPY's close over trailing as-reported earnings per share from Robert Shiller's public record, through Jun 2026. The median member trades at 23.5×, and the fund-factsheet method — a weighted harmonic mean of members' own multiples, which leaves out the ones losing money — puts the same basket at 24.3×. That puts today's multiple above 93.2% of all months since 1871 (long-run median 15.1).
- Trailing P/E
- 26.1
- Median member
- 23.5
- Factsheet method
- 24.3×
- Price/Book
- 5.2
Trailing P/E since 1871#
- Long-run median
- 15.1
- Long-run mean
- 16.2
- Cheapest month
- 5.3 · Dec 1917
- Richest month
- 123.7 · May 2009
Historical series: price ÷ trailing 12-month as-reported earnings per share, from Robert Shiller's public record, through Jun 2026, held against the index's closes to Oct 2026; spikes above 50 (collapsed recession earnings, e.g. 2009's 123.7) are clipped for readability. The dashed green line is today's value, the same figure the valuation bands divide by.
The same history as a distribution
Every month since 1871, binned by its P/E — the green bin is where today sits (hover a bar for its count and example periods).
Where members trade: P/E distribution#
One number hides the spread. For each trailing-P/E range: the thick bar is the share of fund weight, the thin bar the share of members — where they diverge, that range is dominated by a few giants (or a crowd of small names).
"n/a" = loss-making members or no earnings data. Tickers are each range's largest members (hover for the exact P/E). 97.7% of tracked fund weight has a valid trailing P/E.
Every member on one map#
The same 500 members as a treemap: sized by market cap, grouped by sector, colored by trailing P/E rank within the index — so you can see WHERE the cheap and expensive pockets sit. Click a tile for the company's quote page, or open the full heatmap to switch universes and metrics (P/S, P/B, P/FCF, valuation percentiles).
FAQ#
- What is the P/E ratio of the S&P 500?
- The S&P 500's price-to-earnings ratio is currently about 26.1 on trailing 12-month earnings — ChartRow's estimate of the index level from SPY's close over trailing as-reported earnings per share from Robert Shiller's public record, through Jun 2026.
- Is the S&P 500's P/E high right now?
- At 26.1, the index trades richer than 93.2% of all months since 1871 (long-run median 15.1). High multiples have historically meant lower long-run forward returns, but the P/E alone has little power over 1-year horizons.
- How is the index P/E calculated?
- ChartRow's estimate of the index level from SPY's close, divided by trailing twelve-month as-reported earnings per share from Robert Shiller's public record, for the last quarter that record carries (Jun 2026) — the same series the 150-year history is drawn from, so today's figure is simply its last point. Earnings are held between quarters and the price moves daily, which is what a trailing P/E is; when the record adds a quarter the denominator steps. The alternative you will see on fund factsheets — the weighted harmonic mean of members' own P/Es (24.3 for this basket) — answers a different question: it excludes loss-makers and anything outside 3–1000×, and weights by float-adjusted fund weight.
Notes & related#
Current values are computed bottom-up: weights from the tracking fund's SEC N-PORT filing (rolled forward daily by price), member earnings from our SEC EDGAR pipeline (TTM, as filed; Twelve Data fallback where a filing hasn't landed yet), refreshed with each market close. We do not publish a forward P/E: analyst consensus is stated on ADJUSTED earnings, which add back write-offs and acquisition amortisation, while every figure here is net income as filed — Broadcom alone carries $6.01 of trailing GAAP earnings per share against a $19.63 consensus. Set the two side by side and the multiple appears to compress by a third on expected growth that is mostly an accounting basis change. The historical chart uses Robert Shiller's long-run series (as-reported earnings), so the two methodologies differ slightly where they meet. For the cyclically adjusted version, see the Shiller P/E (CAPE); for who's in the index at what weight, the full constituents list; for the cheapest large caps, value stocks. Not investment advice.
More on S&P 500
- Shiller P/E (CAPE)39.8
- Valuation bands26.1×
- Dividend yield1.07%
- Buyback yield1.50%
- Shareholder yield2.53%
- Companies & weights500
- Stock performance500
- Sector performance+55.0%
ChartRow is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, S&P Global, Nasdaq, Inc., FTSE Russell, MSCI Inc., Robert Shiller, RSBB-I, LLC, or Yale University. "S&P 500®" and "S&P®" are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and "Dow Jones®" of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, both licensed to S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC; "Nasdaq-100®" is a registered trademark of Nasdaq, Inc.; "GICS®" is a trademark of MSCI Inc. and S&P Global; "CAPE®" is a registered trademark of RSBB-I, LLC; all other index names are trademarks of their owners. They are used here only to identify the index a fund tracks. ChartRow receives no data from, and holds no licence from, any index provider: the constituents and weights shown are the tracking fund's own holdings as reported in its public SEC filings, rolled forward by ChartRow from daily prices; returns are the fund's own market prices; long-run S&P 500 history comes from public research datasets, Robert Shiller's and Aswath Damodaran's, credited where used; and a current index level is ChartRow's estimate from the fund's price. These figures are ChartRow's own estimates and computations from public filings, prices and research records, provided for information only and without warranty of accuracy; they are not the fund's or any index provider's official figures and may differ from them.