S&P 500 Shiller CAPE Hits 41, Matching Dot-Com Era Valuations
Updated
Updated · The Motley Fool · Aug 15
S&P 500 Shiller CAPE Hits 41, Matching Dot-Com Era Valuations
3 articles · Updated · The Motley Fool · Aug 15
Summary
The S&P 500's Shiller CAPE ratio has reached about 41, a level seen only once before in roughly 150 years of market history.
That puts the market far above the CAPE's long-run average near 17 and well past 30, a threshold historically associated with very expensive valuations.
The warning comes even as the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq are all up double digits in 2026, with much of the advance concentrated in a small group of megacap stocks.
The comparison is to the run-up before the 2000 dot-com bust, though the report says the signal cannot predict timing and does not make another crash inevitable.
The broader takeaway is caution rather than panic: a bull market can keep running, but portfolios tilted toward durable businesses may hold up better in any correction.