Index P/E Multiples
S&P 500 trailing P/E back to 1871, and a cap-weighted forward P/E for SPY, QQQ, SOX and the Nikkei 225
Data as of Sep 10, 2026 07:27 · next refresh Sep 11, 2026 07:27 · ↻ Refresh
Forward P/E — Today's Reading
Forward P/E: SPY vs QQQ vs SOX vs Nikkei 225 — consensus estimates, today Forward
Our own reading, computed here from index constituents and recorded once a day, so this series starts at the first snapshot. The chart below plots this same SPY series against FactSet's published history, which is where to see whether today's reading is high or low; the other three stay here, because no free source measures them on a comparable basis.
Cap-weighted forward P/E computed from index constituents — total market value divided by total forward earnings, which is the correct aggregation. Snapshotted once a day, so this series begins at the first snapshot and lengthens by one point per day.
Consensus Forward P/E — Published History
Consensus Forward P/E — published history Forward
What analysts actually expected on each past date — the same question as the card above, answered by the firms that publish it, so it has real history. The S&P 500 line is FactSet's stated forward 12-month P/E, back to 2017, and our own daily SPY reading is drawn alongside it as a separate line.
FactSet publishes these during earnings season, so the line is dense in Jan/Feb, Apr/May, Jul/Aug and Oct/Nov and flat across the gaps between — the straight stretches are missing weeks, not still markets.
The two S&P 500 lines are separate series and are never joined end to end. They are different constructions — FactSet aggregates its own analyst collection over the full index, this app cap-weights Yahoo's per-name estimates over the constituents it holds — and they read 20.0x and 19.9x on their nearest dates. Agreeing to within half a percent today is a fact about today, not a guarantee, so the seam stays visible.
The Nasdaq-100 points are month-end readings from Siblis, the only free forward figure for that index — eight points from Dec 2023. They sit several turns above the QQQ number in the card above (25.2x vs 20.3x on 30 Jun 2026), and that gap is not an earnings-season effect: across 147 FactSet observations no 40–70 day gap since 2017 moves more than 14.4%, Siblis' own largest move between readings is 8.3%, and the eight Q2 seasons on record move the S&P forward P/E by only −4.7% to +10.8%. It is constituent coverage — 45 of 97 names — so QQQ is left out of this chart rather than drawn into a cliff that never happened.
Where Only a Trailing P/E Exists
Forward P/E History — S&P 500 / SPY, realized earnings
S&P 500 (SPY) Forward P/E History — on realized earnings Forward
Index level divided by the earnings of the following twelve months — the multiple buyers actually paid for the earnings that arrived. Real history since 1871, because the denominator moves independently of price. It uses hindsight rather than the consensus of the day, so it stops twelve months short of today. Log scale — the 2009 reading near 193x would otherwise flatten the rest.
This is the S&P 500 — the index SPY tracks. There is no equivalent for the Nasdaq-100: nobody publishes its earnings history for free, which is why the Nasdaq appears only as today's reading above and as eight month-end consensus points in the chart above that.
Not comparable with the consensus tiles above, and not meant to be: those divide today's price by analyst estimates of the next twelve months, this divides a year-old price by the earnings that actually arrived. Same index, different denominators and different dates — so the two readings differ by several turns of multiple.
S&P 500 Trailing P/E — 155 Years
S&P 500 Trailing P/E Trailing
Monthly since 1871, built on actual reported earnings rather than a constant-EPS approximation — so the shape is real valuation history, not a rescaled price chart.
S&P 500 Trailing Earnings per Share (as reported) Trailing
The denominator behind the P/E above. A multiple can fall because prices dropped or because earnings grew, and only this series distinguishes the two.
Sources quoting $300 or $400+ are not contradicting this. Three different earnings figures circulate for the same index: this is as-reported (GAAP) trailing 12-month EPS, which is what multpl’s P/E is built on; operating (adjusted) trailing EPS excludes write-downs and typically runs 10–20% higher; and forward 12-month operating EPS — the FactSet consensus above, at 20.0x — is higher again, roughly 48% above this series. All three are real; they differ by what is excluded and by which twelve months they cover.
Why there is no long forward-P/E history
A historical forward P/E for SPY or QQQ is not available from free data. Yahoo returns no forward P/E, forward EPS or trailing EPS for either ETF — only a current trailing P/E — and no free source publishes past forward estimates. The tempting shortcut, dividing historical prices by today's consensus EPS, produces a line mathematically identical to the price chart: it implies earnings expectations never changed, so 2020 prices over 2026 earnings yield a badly wrong multiple. Rather than ship that, this page keeps two honest series apart: a genuine trailing P/E with 155 years of real earnings behind it, and a true forward P/E that starts the day snapshots began and grows daily.
Trailing and forward multiples are not comparable to each other — forward earnings are normally higher, so a forward P/E sits below the trailing one for the same market. The forward figure is an estimate over the index members whose fundamentals the app already tracks, cap-weighted; the constituent count is shown beneath the chart. It is computed from cached fundamentals rather than by querying every constituent, because bulk per-name requests get the whole app throttled by Yahoo.
Sources: multpl.com for S&P 500 trailing P/E and earnings; forward P/E computed from constituent fundamentals via Yahoo Finance