Friday, February 13, 2009

How current PE ratios stand up historically - MarketWatch

From MarketWatch:
How current PE ratios stand up historically - MarketWatch:
"Here's today's investment pop quiz: Where do price/earnings ratios stand today relative to several months ago, as well as to the beginning of this bear market in October 2007?.....

Based on earnings on an "as-reported" over the trailing 12-months, the p/e ratio for the S&P 500 index stood at around 20 at the stock market's top in October 2007....the comparable p/e ratio as of Thursday night, based on data from Standard & Poor's, is 29.1.

How can this be, you might ask? The answer is simple: Earnings in this bear market have fallen even faster than has the market itself. And no matter how fast the "p" in the ratio is falling, the ratio has to climb if the "e" is falling even faster.

Indeed, today's p/e ratio is higher than 97.8% of the monthly readings dating back to 1871, according to data compiled by Yale University Finance Professor Robert Shiller."


Which deserves a wow!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Trailing PE on MSCI USA 11.6, from 17.2 at the end of 2007.
Forward PE: 11.1
Price/Book: 1.6
Price to Cash: 6.7:
ROE: 13.9

While it is cheaper than Marketwatch says, it's still expensive relative to other markets.