The S&P 500 trades at 26.1 times the last twelve months of earnings, as of the week of October 19, 2026. That's the P/E weighted by market value, the way the index itself is weighted. We now compute it every week back to 2010 from SEC filings, so you can answer a plain question with numbers: how expensive is the market compared with its own history?
Quick answer
- P/E: 26.1x. Higher than 69% of weekly readings since 2010. Lower than 68% of them over the last five years, which keeps it within its usual five-year range.
- A year ago it was 31.8x. This week's reading is the lowest since April 2025.
- The typical stock is lower. The median S&P 500 stock trades at 24.1x, lower than 65% of its weekly readings over the last five years.
- Without the Magnificent 7, the P/E is the same 26.1x, close to its five-year median of 25.9x.
- On sales, the market is near its high. The price-to-sales ratio is 3.6x, higher than 96% of weekly readings since 2010. The peak was 3.8x in the week of May 25, 2026.
The S&P 500 P/E ratio by year
First week of each year, plus the latest week. The S&P 500 columns weight each company by market value. The median stock column is the middle P/E among the members, so a few giant companies can't pull it around.
| Week | S&P 500 P/E | Median stock P/E | S&P 500 P/S |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 3, 2011 | 18.7x | 17.1x | 1.3x |
| Jan 2, 2012 | 14.3x | 16.6x | 1.2x |
| Jan 7, 2013 | 15.4x | 19.3x | 1.3x |
| Jan 6, 2014 | 19.5x | 22.5x | 1.6x |
| Jan 5, 2015 | 19.4x | 22.5x | 1.8x |
| Jan 4, 2016 | 19.7x | 20.4x | 1.6x |
| Jan 2, 2017 | 23.6x | 23.2x | 1.9x |
| Jan 1, 2018 | 25.4x | 26.5x | 2.2x |
| Jan 7, 2019 | 21.2x | 20.4x | 2.0x |
| Jan 6, 2020 | 25.2x | 25.0x | 2.4x |
| Jan 4, 2021 | 38.7x | 29.6x | 3.0x |
| Jan 3, 2022 | 28.9x | 28.0x | 3.2x |
| Jan 2, 2023 | 21.6x | 22.3x | 2.3x |
| Jan 1, 2024 | 26.6x | 25.2x | 2.7x |
| Jan 6, 2025 | 31.2x | 25.2x | 3.3x |
| Jan 5, 2026 | 30.6x | 26.0x | 3.6x |
| Oct 19, 2026 | 26.1x | 24.1x | 3.6x |
The takeaway: Since 2010 the S&P 500's P/E has run from 13.0x to 42.8x. Half of all weeks sat between 19.1x and 27.3x, and today's 26.1x is near the top of that middle band.
Two windows, two answers
Against every week since 2010, 26.1x is on the high side. The middle weekly reading is 22.8x, and 31% of weeks were higher than today.
Against the last five years, it's on the low side. The five-year middle reading is 27.8x, and 68% of those weeks were higher.
Both are true because the last five years ran hotter than the years before them. That window holds 61 weeks above 30x, 32 of them in 2025. Before it, the middle reading was 20.8x. Our percentiles use five years for every stock, because businesses change and old readings say less about today. The longer view shows what calmer years looked like. Check both before deciding what "expensive" means to you.
The takeaway: Compared with every week since 2010, today's P/E is on the high side. Compared with the last five years, it's within its usual range and below the middle.
The high and the low
The lowest week was 13.0x, the week of November 21, 2011, during the euro debt crisis. The median stock bottomed at 14.9x in the week of August 15, 2011.
The highest week was 42.8x, the week of April 12, 2021, and it came mostly from earnings, not prices. A trailing P/E divides today's price by the last twelve months of earnings, and in April 2021 those twelve months were 2020's pandemic quarters. Our data shows the hit: that week the S&P 500 kept about 7.5 cents of profit from each dollar of sales, against 9.6 cents at the start of 2020. As earnings recovered, the P/E fell to 28.9x by January 2022, even though the same companies' total market value rose 12% over the same stretch.
The past year worked the same way. The P/E fell from 31.8x to 26.1x while the same companies' total market value rose 12%. Earnings grew faster than prices.
The takeaway: A very high P/E can mean earnings fell, and a falling P/E can mean earnings grew. The 2021 peak is the clearest example in the series.
Why P/S is near a high when P/E isn't
The price-to-sales ratio tells a different story. At 3.6x, the S&P 500's P/S is higher than 96% of weekly readings since 2010 and higher than 88% over the last five years, above its usual range. In January 2012 it was 1.2x.
The gap between the two is profit margins. Divide P/S by P/E and you get how much profit the index keeps from each dollar of sales. Today that's about 14 cents. From 2012 through 2017 it was 8 to 9 cents. Investors pay more for each dollar of sales than at any point in the 2010s, and each dollar of sales now brings in more profit, so the P/E looks far less stretched than the P/S.
That leaves a question only you can answer: do margins this high last? If they do, the P/E is the fairer reading. If they drift back toward 2010s levels, the P/S shows how much of today's price depends on them. Our guide to when P/E, P/S and EV/EBITDA each matter walks through the trade-off.
The takeaway: On sales, the S&P 500 is near its most expensive since 2010. On earnings it isn't, because companies keep more profit from each sale than they did a decade ago.
What the Magnificent 7 change
Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, NVIDIA, Meta and Tesla make up about 37% of the total market value of today's S&P 500 members. Take them out and the P/E is 26.1x, the same as with them in. That's new. In January 2025 the P/E was 31.2x with them and 28.0x without; in January 2021, 38.7x and 35.6x.
On sales they still matter: 3.6x with them, 2.7x without. Even without them, the P/S is higher than 89% of its weekly readings over the last five years, above its usual range. The rise in sales multiples reaches well beyond big tech.
The takeaway: The Magnificent 7 no longer lift the market's P/E. They still lift its P/S, and the rest of the market sits above its usual five-year range on sales too.
How we built this history
- Today's members only. Every week uses the companies in the S&P 500 today (membership as of October 20, 2026), one listing per company, so Alphabet's two share classes count once. Companies that left the index since 2010 are missing, and companies that joined later count in the years before they joined. So the early years show how today's members were priced back then, not the index as it stood. This is survivorship bias, and it's the main limit of this series.
- Filings as they were known. Trailing earnings and sales come from SEC filings, and each week uses only the reports filed by that date. Prices are weekly closes. The weighted P/E divides the companies' total market value by their total earnings, losses included.
- Fewer companies in the early years. The SEC phased in machine-readable financial statements from June 2009 through 2011, and a trailing P/E needs four quarters of them. So the count climbs from 145 companies in January 2011 to 271 in January 2012 and 442 today. We publish a week only when at least 100 companies have the numbers, which is why the history starts in the week of May 31, 2010.
- Our estimates, not the official index figure. Index providers publish their own P/E using their own earnings definitions and each period's members, so expect their number to differ.
Check it yourself
The S&P 500 P/E ratio history chart updates every week. Switch between the median stock, the market-value-weighted index and the index without the Magnificent 7, flip to P/S, and open the table to see every year. Below the chart, sector bars show which parts of the market sit high or low against their own history.
For single stocks, the screener ranks each company against its own five-year range. Start with stocks trading below their own five-year median P/E or stocks near their lowest P/E in five years. If the ranks are new to you, read what a valuation percentile is and how to read a valuation band chart.
FAQ
What is the average S&P 500 P/E ratio since 2010? The middle weekly reading since 2010 is 22.8x, and the simple average is 23.5x. Half of all weeks fell between 19.1x and 27.3x. Is the S&P 500 expensive right now? On earnings, it's above its middle reading since 2010 (22.8x) and below its five-year middle (27.8x). On sales, it's near its highest since 2010. Which of those matters more depends on whether today's profit margins last.Data: SEC EDGAR XBRL filings and weekly closing prices, computed by StockResearch for today's S&P 500 members (membership as of October 20, 2026). Figures are for the week of October 19, 2026, computed October 23, 2026. Profit per dollar of sales is P/S divided by P/E from the same weekly series. Alex leads research at StockResearch and writes the monthly valuation report. Nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Do your own research.