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how to calculate p/e ratio for s&p500 sectors
user
for the s&p and many other indices (but not the djia) the index "price" is just a unitless number that is the result of a complicated formula.  it's not a dollar value.  so when you divide said number by the earnings/share of the sector, you're again getting just a unitless number that is incomparable to standard p-e ratios. in fact, now that i think about, it kinda makes sense that each sector would have a similar value for the number that you're computing, since each sector's index formula is presumably written to make all the index "price"s look similar to consumers.
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