Biggest decline in S&P 500 earnings since 1936

Historical S&P 500 earnings (1936-jun-2009, source: chartoftheday.com)

Today I just received this figure with companies in the S & P 500 index earnings per share (EPS) of, which is the largest 500 U.S. companies on the stock market. As the index traded around 1,000 points, and the benefit to 12 months is less than $2, the current Price to earnings ratio (P/E) is over 500 times.

But of course, this ratio should be viewed with a normalisated or future earnings. For the next quarter, is even worse because it is estimated that we will losses in all 500 companies, for the first time. EPS negative, so mathematically the PER sept 09 would be negative.

Estimations for 2010 are about $74 of earnings, so it results a 13.5 times P/E. In my opinion, will not be easy to achieve so at least it is very difficult in the next 12 months see the stock market well above the 1.000 points in the S&P 500.