P/E (or similar) for index funds?
"ycharts.com has ""Weighted Average PE Ratio"" and a bunch of other metrics that are meant to correspond to well known stock metrics.  Other websites will have similar ratios." The S&P 500 is a market index.  The P/E data you're finding for the S&P 500 is data based on the constituent list of that market index and isn't necessarily the P/E ratio of a given fund, even one that aims to track the performance of the S&P 500.    I'm sure similar metrics exist for other market indexes, but unless Vanguard is publishing it's specific holdings in it's target date funds there's no market index to look at.
John Bogle never said only buy the S&P 500 or any single index Q:Do you think the average person could safely invest for retirement and   other goals without expert advice -- just by indexing? A: Yes, there is a rule of thumb I add to that. You should start out   heavily invested in equities. Hold some bond index funds as well as   stock index funds. By the time you get closer to retirement or into   your retirement, you should have a significant position in bond index   funds as well as stock index funds. As we get older, we have less time   to recoup. We have more money to protect and our nervousness increases   with age. We get a little bit worried about that nest egg when it's   large and we have little time to recoup it, so we pay too much   attention to the fluctuations in the market, which in the long run   mean nothing. How much to pay Q: What's the highest expense ratio that one should pay for a   domestic equity fund? A: I'd say three-quarters of 1 percent maybe.   Q: For an international fund?  A: I'd say three-quarters of 1 percent.   Q: For a bond fund? A: One-half of 1 percent. But I'd shave that a little bit. For   example, if you can buy a no-load bond fund or a no-load stock fund,   you can afford a little more expense ratio, because you're not paying   any commission. You've eliminated cost No. 2.... generally Forward P/E is computed as current price / forward earnings.  The rationale behind this is that buying the stock costs you the current price, and it gives you a claim on the future earnings. Index funds: Some of the funds listed by US SIF are index funds. ETFs: ETFdb has a list, though it's pretty short at the moment. Are you implying that Amazon is a better investment than GE because Amazon's P/E is 175 while GE's is only 27?  Or that GE is a better investment than Apple because Apple's P/E is just 13.  There are a lot of other ratios to consider than P/E.  I personally view high P/E numbers as a red flag.  One way to think of a P/E ratio is the number of years it's expected for the company to earn its market cap.  (Share price divided by annual earnings per share)  It will take Amazon 175 years to earn $353 billion. If I was going to buy a dry cleaners, I would not pay the owner 175 years of earnings to take control of it, I'd never see my investment back. To your point.  There is so much future growth seemingly built in to today's stock market that even when a company posts higher than expected earnings, the company's stock may take a hit because maybe future prospects are a little less bright than everyone thought yesterday. The point of fundamental analysis is that you want to look at a company's management style and financial strategies.  How is it paying its debt?  How is it accumulating the debt?  How is it's return on assets?  How is the return on assets trending?  This way when you look at a few companies in the same market segment you may have a better shot at picking the winner over time.  The company that piles on new debt for every new project is likely to continue that path in to oblivion, regardless of the P/E ratio. (or some other equally less forward thinking management practice that you uncover in your fundamental analysis efforts). And I'll add... No amount of historical good decision making from a company's management can prepare for a total market downturn, or lack of investor confidence in general.  The market is the market; sometimes it's up irrationally, sometimes it's down irrationally. I think you need a diversified portfolio, and index funds can be a part of that. Make sure that you understand the composition of your funds and that they are in fact invested in different investments. "You could not have two stocks both at $40, both with P/E 2, but one an EPS of $5 and the other $10.  EPS = Earnings Per Share P/E = Price per share/Earnings Per Share So, in your example, the stock with EPS of $5 has a P/E of 8, and the stock with an EPS of $10 has a P/E of 4.  So no, it's not valid way of looking at things, because your understanding of EPS and P/E is incorrect. Update: Ok, with that fixed, I think I understand your question better. This isn't a valid way of looking at P/E. You nailed one problem yourself at the end of the post: The tricky part is that you have to assume certain values remain   constant, I suppose But besides that, it still doesn't work. It seems to make sense in the context of investor psychology: if a stock is ""supposed to"" trade at a low P/E, like a utility, that it would stay at that low P/E, and thus a $1 worth of EPS increase would result in lower $$ price increase than a stock that was ""supposed to"" have a high P/E. And that would be true. But let's game it out: Scenario Say you have two stocks, ABC and XYZ. Both have $5 EPS. ABC is a utility, so it has a low P/E of 5, and thus trades at $25/share. XYZ is a high flying tech company, so it has a P/E of 10, thus trading at $50/share. If both companies increase their EPS by $1, to $6, and the P/Es remain the same, that means company ABC rises to $30, and company XYZ rises to $60. Hey! One went up $5, and the other $10, twice as much! That means XYZ was the better investment, right? Nope. You see, shares are not tokens, and you don't get an identical, arbitrary number of them. You make an investment, and that's in dollars. So, say you'd invested $1,000 in each. $1,000 in ABC buys you 40 shares. $1,000 in XYZ buys you 20 shares. Their EPS adds that buck, the shares rise to maintain P/E, and you have: ABC: $6 EPS at P/E 5 = $30/share. Position value = 40 shares x $30/share = $1,200 XYZ: $6 EPS at P/E 10 = $60/share. Position value = 20 shares x $60/share = $1,200 They both make you the exact same 20% profit. It makes sense when you think about it this way: a 20% increase in EPS is going to give you a 20% increase in price if the P/E is to remain constant. It doesn't matter what the dollar amount of the EPS or the share price is." "Sure, it doesn't, but realistically they can't/shouldn't do anything about it in their index funds, because then they're just another stock picker, trying to gauge which companies are going to do best.  Their funds not all being indexes is what I was getting at with my original question. How much leeway do they have in their definitions of other funds? IE, if they had a dividend fund that included all large cap dividend paying stocks above 3% yield, they couldn't take out Shell just because of climate risk without fundamentally changing what the fund is. But if it's just ""income fund"" then they can do whatever in that space." I've looked into Thinkorswim; my father uses it. Although better than eTrade, it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Interactive Brokers is a name I had heard a long time ago but forgotten. Thank you for that, it seems to be just what I need. See if any of the funds they offer are index funds, which will generally have MUCH lower fees and which seem to perform as well as any of the actively managed funds in the same categories. Google 'information ratio'. It is better suited to what you want than the Sharpe or Sortino ratios because it only evaluates the *excess* return you get from your investment, ie. return from your investment minus the return from a benchmark investment. The benchmark here could be an index like the S&amp;P500. Thanks for the advice. I will look into index funds.   The only reason I was interested in this stock in particular is that I used to work for the company, and always kept an eye on the stock price. I saw that their stock prices recently went down by quite a bit but I feel like I've seen this happen to them a few times over the past few years and I think they have a strong catalogue of products coming out soon that will cause their stock to rise over the next few years.   After not being able to really understand the steps needed to purchase it though, I think I've learned that I really don't know enough about the stock system in general to make any kind of informed decisions about it and should probably stick to something lower-risk or at least do some research before making any ill-informed decisions. On the US markets, most index options are European style.  Most stock and ETF options are, as you noted, American style. See this link...I was also looking an answer to the same questions. This site explains with an example  http://www.independent-stock-investing.com/PE-Ratio.html I'm a believer in broad index funds for the vast majority of investors. However, I'm sure someone here is more qualified than me to speak to the correct allocation.   I'm mostly pointing out low-hanging fruit: you should (almost) never invest in the company that pays your wages. You could just dump it in the S&amp;P or some broad market index and be in a better position. I'm not 100% familiar with the index they're using to measure hedge fund performance, but based on the name alone, comparing market returns to *market neutral* hedge fund returns seems a bit disingenuous.  That doesn't mean the article is wrong, and they have a point about the democratization of data, but still.