Below we highlight one-year charts of trailing 12-month P/E ratios for the S&P 500 and its ten sectors. The red dots highlight where the P/Es stood when the market peaked on October 10th. Since the market is down significantly since October 10th, it's not good to see its P/E higher than it was back then, as that means earnings are declining faster than the price.
Remember when everyone was saying Financials were cheap in late 2007 based on its P/E ratio? That argument didn't hold for too long. Materials and Energy have also seen their P/Es rise, but prices have also risen for these sectors. And unfortunately, we didn't include Consumer Discretionary or Telecom because Discretionary's P/E is in the 100s and Telecom's is negative. Industrials, Health Care, Consumer Staples and Utilities have fortunately seen their P/Es decline slightly, and Technology's valuations have fallen significantly since earnings have held up well for that sector.
What's the methodology on this? Using Bloomberg consensus/First Call? This year's EPS/ next year's? Why is there so much variation in what people will say is the P/E of the market and its sectors. The WSJ often reports P/Es that I would have thought impossible having done a reasonable amount of work on P/Es.
Posted by: GSS | April 23, 2008 at 09:18 PM
I'd like to see another of these of the market as a whole, like you did in March.
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Posted by: Creative Recreation | June 30, 2010 at 05:08 AM