S&P 500 Price to Earnings (P/E) and Earnings per Share (EPS) Data

This post is part of the foundation for the future being assembled here. It shows, in one simple to read location, the official S&P 500 P/E and EPS ratio's for their popular equity market index. Here is a link to an interesting description of the S&P 500 ratio's from two fund managers who wrote the piece for Barron's titled "What's the Real P/E Ratio?". In that article the author's make the observation that "There are two main earnings numbers that Wall Street uses when discussing valuations -- "reported earnings" or "operating earnings." Typically, the bulls use "operating earnings," and the bears use "reported earnings" because operating earnings are higher and reported earnings are lower." Please don't believe it is that simple. Read their article and then you will be able to understand the differences found between the two styles in 2008, seen below. Another brief description of some terms used can be found in the previous post titled S&P 500 Price/Earning Ratios. Below the break readers will see estimated earnings per share data followed by the actual P/E and EPS ratio's for the past ten years.

		OPERATING		AS REPORTED
		EARNINGS		EARNINGS
		P/E		P/E
		(ests are		(ests are
		bottom up)		top down)
ESTIMATES
12/31/2011		12.64		16.38
09/30/2011		13.20		16.80
06/30/2011		13.77		17.37
03/30/2011		14.43		18.21
12/31/2010		15.14		19.04
09/30/2010		16.03		19.22
06/30/2010		17.11		19.46
03/31/2010		18.50		19.95

S&P 500 Price/Earnings Ratio

The information about the S&P 500 price to earnings ratio below is from a short article by Carl Swenlin. His article has another chart that shows the current S&P value compared with hypothetical values based on the reported trailing earnings and multiples in the undervalued, fair value and overvalued ranges.  This restores my confidence in my process. I have been unable to replicate the claims by some who insist that the S&P is trading at a P/E in the upper atmosphere, like 80-120 times trailing, not to be confused with average earnings per share as shown below. This just had to be saved for my future reference. Thanks Carl.