S&P 500 Aggregate Return on Equity (TTM)

Live value temporarily unavailable.

Source: Company filings (aggregated)

Data updated daily

What it measures

The S&P 500 ROE (return on equity) measures aggregate trailing-twelve-month net income as a percentage of aggregate average shareholders' equity for index constituents. It answers how efficiently the index converts invested equity capital into profit. An ROE of 18% means the index generates $18 of net income for every $100 of book equity employed.

Why it matters

ROE is the fundamental bridge between earnings and book value — it determines whether a high P/B multiple is justified. If ROE sustainably exceeds the cost of equity, the index deserves to trade at a premium to book; if ROE falls below the cost of equity, the market is destroying value. At the index level, ROE trends reflect both operational profitability (net margin) and financial leverage (the equity multiplier in the DuPont decomposition). A rising ROE driven by increasing leverage rather than margin or asset turnover improvement is a warning sign: it borrows return from the future at the cost of balance sheet fragility.

How it is calculated

ROE (TTM) = Σ TTM Net Income ÷ Σ Average Shareholders' Equity × 100

LENSE computes the S&P 500 ROE as the ratio of aggregate TTM net income to aggregate average shareholders' equity — not a simple average of per-company ROEs. Average equity per constituent is the mean of beginning- and end-of-period book equity using as-reported balance sheet data. TTM net income is constructed by summing the four most recently reported fiscal quarters. Constituents with negative or zero average equity are excluded from the denominator. Index constituency is resolved point-in-time using point-in-time index constituency.

Recent (monthly)

Recent data unavailable.

Data source: Company filings (aggregated). Computed and published by LENSE Analytics.