Ned Davis Research
Cash-adjusted PE Ratio
“…companies hold a near-record $3.8 trillion in cash and short-term investments… total cash accounts for roughly 26.1% of total market capitalization for the S&P 500
The chart below shows the cash-adjusted P/E ratio for the S&P 500. This measure removes cash from the total market cap and subtracts non-operating income from earnings…
..When adjusted for cash, the S&P 500 P/E multiple is 13.1, which is below the long-term average of 15.4, indicating that the multiple may have room to expand further.
..Q3 2011, the cash-adjusted multiple fell to 8.2. This was the lowest level for the ratio since Q3 1982, which happened to coincide with the end of the 1966-1982 secular bear market, offering additional support that valuations may have gotten low enough for the start of a secular bull market.
While the ratio implies a fair value near 1400 for the S&P 500, the multiple does not suggest valuations are stretched. In fact, most of our P/E measures do not suggest extremely overvalued conditions…”