S&P 500 Earnings Per Share (EPS) History

On this page is an interactive history of the S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS) – the trailing twelve-month, as-reported earnings behind the index, going back to the indexes precursors in 1871. Toggle nominal or inflation-adjusted dollars, flip to a log scale, and snap the summary stats to any window you want.

The S&P 500 earnings per share calculator

Using the S&P 500 EPS calculator

The default view shows nominal trailing-twelve-month EPS. Everything recalculates as you change a setting or move the chart.

• Nominal / Real (CPI-adj) – switch between dollars of the day and inflation-adjusted dollars, restated to the most recent month.
• Linear / Log – a log scale straightens out 150 years of compounding so the early history is actually readable.
• Highlights cards – the latest reading, year-over-year change, the high inside your selected window, and that window's annualized growth rate. The cards follow whatever window you choose.
• Chart range – use the 10Y / 20Y / 30Y / 50Y / Max buttons or drag the brush under the chart. Copy or download the data from the buttons on the right.
• By-year table – December readings, newest first, sortable, with nominal, real, and year-over-year columns.

S&P 500 earnings per share by year

Below is the year-by-year history of S&P 500 as-reported GAAP earnings per share (December readings), in both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars. Click to expand.

What is S&P 500 EPS?

Earnings per share is the total earnings of the index's companies divided by the index's share count (handled through the S&P 500 divisor).

Here, we use the trailing twelve-month, as-reported figure, so each month's value is that month plus the previous eleven and not a single quarter annualized. As-reported (GAAP, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) earnings include the write-downs, restructuring charges, and one-time items that operating earnings strip out, so they run lower – recently by roughly 9%. If a number you've seen elsewhere looks higher than ours, it's most likely operating earnings.

GAAP has its own catch: the rulebook keeps changing, sometimes in ways that redefine what "earnings" means. For a quick rundown:

• Goodwill stopped being amortized in the early 2000s
• Employee stock options became a required expense in the mid-2000s
• Mark-to-market rules deepened the 2008 write-downs
• Since 2018, companies have had to run the unrealized gains and losses on their stock holdings straight through net income – so companies like Berkshire Hathaway's reported profit now lurches around with the market

So GAAP earnings are consistent within an era but not perfectly comparable across decades; the further back you reach, the more the accounting underneath has shifted. Operating earnings try to smooth that over, but every company draws the line differently, so it trades one problem for another.

Methodology and sources

Monthly index prices, earnings, and CPI come from Robert J. Shiller's compiled dataset, with recent quarters from S&P Dow Jones Indices. Each index value is the average of that month's daily closes; earnings are the as-reported four-quarter total.

For the underlying construction detail, see DQYDJ's S&P 500 Return Calculator.

• EPS is the trailing twelve-month, as-reported (GAAP) earnings per share of the index.
• Quarter-end months (March, June, September, December) hold the actual reported trailing-twelve-month earnings; the months between are interpolated. The by-year table uses December, so it is the real reported full-year figure.
• Real values are inflation-adjusted with CPI-U and restated into the latest month's dollars: real EPS = nominal EPS × (CPI_latest ÷ CPI_month).

\text{Real EPS}_t = \text{EPS}_t \times \dfrac{\text{CPI}_{\text{latest}}}{\text{CPI}_t}

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