Houston this Market has a Problem

From Mark Halbert at Marketwatch:

Based on trailing 12-month earnings, the S&P 500’s SPX current P/E ratio is 18.8. Even if we assume that all 500 companies in the index will report earnings over the next few weeks that match analyst estimates, the S&P’s P/E drops only modestly, to 17.9. Even that lower level is higher than 77% of comparable readings over the last 140 years, according to data compiled by Yale University finance professor Robert Shiller. The average P/E for the S&P 500 since 1871 is 15.5 and the median P/E is 14.5.

Read the whole article.