S&P 500 Gets 9% Cheaper as Profit Restores $3.2 Trillion (You are Underinvested!)

Profits in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index are rising faster than its price, leaving the gauge 9 percent cheaper than it was in April even after American equities climbed within 0.1 percent of last year’s high.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent to 1,363.46 today following a rally since October that added as much as $3.2 trillion to share values, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the index is just shy of its 2011 peak of 1,363.61, expanding income has pushed the price-earnings ratio to 14.1 from 15.4 in April.

Economic growth that has been slower than any post- recession period since at least the 1940s is keeping investors from paying more for earnings even after stocks doubled in three years. The best January for the S&P 500 in 15 years has coincided with a decline in New York Stock Exchange trading volume to the lowest level since 1999 and record deposits with investment-grade bond funds.

“The world is profoundly underinvested in U.S. equities,” Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida, said in a phone interview on Feb. 21. His firm manages $300 billion. “The public is bombarded with all these negatives. Greece this, Portugal that, dysfunctional governments. The retail investor is frozen.”

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