Country P/E Ratios Move Lower on Market Weakness

The P/E ratios of major country indices have moved much lower in the first 15 days of the year, as equities have suffered one of the worst starts in the history of equities.

The average P/E ratio of the 22 countries we analyzed is 16.56. China's Shanghai Composite has the highest P/E at 49.49, followed by India at 29.10. The idea that emerging markets would severely underperform once global equity markets cracked has yet to play out.

In fact, the opposite is occurring, as investors are putting a premium on growing economies even though equities there might be "overvalued." China, Russia and Malaysia are actually up on the year, and India is just barely down.

The country with the lowest P/E ratio both now and at the end of 2007, Sweden, is also the country that is down the most in value (-10.48%).

Comments

[dieuwer:]

Where did you get these P/E ratios from? There seems to be a huge discrepancy between these P/E/ ratios, and the P/E ratios from yahoo ETF browser and from iShares.com

2008 Jan 15 07:25 PM