The S&P 500's P/E is 25.0x, lower than 71% of its weekly readings over the last five years. Its price-to-sales ratio is 3.6x, higher than 81% of them. Those two readings are from the same index in the same week, and they point in different directions. That is the starting point for a question many investors are asking as the Federal Reserve talks about raising rates: is the market expensive, and where?
What has been reported
The facts below are as reported, with each outlet and date.
- Charles Schwab's November 12 market update said October's Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% for the month, and that Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee called the report "borderline disturbing" in a PBS interview. Schwab added that 54.4% of CPI components are rising at an annualized pace above 3%, against a two-decade average of about one-third. (Charles Schwab)
- The same update cited the CME FedWatch Tool as putting the odds of a rate increase at the December meeting at 100%.
- CNBC reported on November 12 that Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack supports raising rates but does not expect a half-point move, preferring smaller, more frequent increases. CNBC noted that Fed Governor Christopher Waller had earlier in the week raised the possibility of a half-point hike in December. (CNBC)
Markets can read the same news in different ways, and a rate hike that is already fully priced in the futures market is not the same as one that surprises. We do not forecast either. What we can add is where stocks sit against their own history going into the meeting.
The market: cheap on earnings, rich on sales
We rank each measure against its own weekly readings from the last five years. These are the readings for the week of November 9.
| Series | P/E | P/E rank in own range | P/S | P/S rank in own range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole S&P 500 | 25.0x | 29th percentile | 3.6x | 81st percentile |
| Typical S&P 500 stock | 23.2x | 30th percentile | 3.3x | 69th percentile |
| S&P 500 without the Magnificent 7 | 25.1x | 47th percentile | 2.7x | 89th percentile |
Two things stand out. The whole index's P/E of 25.0x is below its five-year median of 27.3x. Its P/S of 3.6x is above its five-year median of 3.1x. A gap like that can come from wider profit margins. Our readings do not isolate the cause, and they cannot say whether margins hold.
The second is that the index without the Magnificent 7 sits at the 89th percentile on P/S. The part of the market outside the biggest names is not cheap on sales. These are coverage-dependent proxies built from the current S&P 500 members, with survivorship bias, not official index multiples. The methodology page has the construction.
Sectors: a middle-of-the-road spread
The median P/E rank of each sector's stocks, against each stock's own five-year range, shows no sector at an extreme.
| Sector | Median P/E | Median rank in own range |
|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | 29.3x | 35th percentile |
| Communication Services | 18.7x | 35th percentile |
| Financials | 13.3x | 44th percentile |
| Information Technology | 33.8x | 47th percentile |
| Materials | 20.0x | 47th percentile |
| Energy | 14.3x | 48th percentile |
| Consumer Discretionary | 19.8x | 51st percentile |
| Utilities | 19.8x | 52nd percentile |
| Industrials | 27.4x | 53rd percentile |
| Health Care | 30.4x | 57th percentile |
| Consumer Staples | 24.2x | 58th percentile |
The highest sector median is Consumer Staples at the 58th percentile, and the lowest are Real Estate and Communication Services at the 35th. A median can hide a lot, which is why the next section looks at individual names.
Individual names: the expensive and the cheap are not who the headlines suggest
Across the 991 stocks in our screener, 77 sit in the top tenth of their own five-year P/E range and 108 sit in the bottom tenth. A few large names illustrate how mixed the picture is:
| Stock | P/E now | Five-year median P/E | Rank in own range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 39.7x | 31.4x | 96th percentile |
| Tesla | 429.5x | 107.3x | 99th percentile |
| Nvidia | 22.0x | 55.9x | Lowest reading |
| Oracle | 20.1x | 32.5x | 3rd percentile |
| Netflix | 18.7x | 40.7x | 6th percentile |
The first two are far above their own norms. The last three are among the lowest readings of their own five years. A lower P/E against history can mean the price fell, or that earnings grew. It does not mean a stock is a bargain, and a high rank does not mean it will fall. Our guide to valuation percentiles explains the construction.
What the numbers cannot tell you
- How the Fed decides. Nothing in a multiple tells you the size of a hike or what the Fed says about the path after it.
- Which earnings hold up. A trailing P/E uses the last twelve months of results. Higher borrowing costs would show up in later quarters, not in these readings.
- Timing. A rank describes where a price sits against the past. It does not say where it goes after the meeting.
How to use this today
We do not make buy or sell calls, and nothing here is a recommendation or a price prediction. The practical use of the data is a position-by-position check. Look up each holding on its own page and see whether it sits near the top, the middle or the bottom of its own five-year range, then compare that with why you own it. The bottom-decile screen lists the stocks currently at the low end of their P/E range, and the market page shows the index and each sector. For one large tech example, see Nvidia's P/E history.
Data: SEC EDGAR XBRL filings and weekly closing prices, computed by StockResearch. Market and sector readings are for the week of November 9, 2026. Individual stock readings and screener counts are dated November 12, 2026. News items are attributed to the outlets named, with the dates shown. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.