What has been the annual price/earnings ratio (historical, not forward
looking) of the S&P 500 from 1960 through 2001? I would like the P/E
ratio for each year.

Standard & Poor's Statistical Service, "Security Price Index Record,"
(2002 edition) which is available most libraries.  Here are the
numbers for 1957-1995; I'll post the balance for you on Friday.  These
are in *.jpg format and will be moderately large, making it easier for
you to read the data:
http://www.mooneyevents.com/images/SP57to69.jpg 
http://www.mooneyevents.com/images/SP70to81.jpg 
http://www.mooneyevents.com/images/SP82to95.jpg 

The P-E rations are split by
industrials/transportation/utility/financial/composite stocks.  The
full S&P500 is represented by the "Composite" column.

Best regards, 
 
Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 29 Nov 2002 13:29 PST

P-E for the S&P 500 at the end of the year (Q4) for each year was:

1996: 19.1
1997: 24.2
1998: 32.6
1999: 30.5
2000: 26.4
2001: 40.6

The source is the same, the "Security Price Index Record," 2002 edition.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Request for Answer Clarification by jr1-ga on 01 Dec 2002 08:11 PST

Thanks omnivorous-ga for your answer however I was wondering whether
you could provide the annual p/e ratio for industrials for 1960-1995. 
The information you linked to only provided the quarterly info.
Thanks. -jr1

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Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 01 Dec 2002 08:30 PST

Jr1 --

The P-E for each quarter is taken at the end of each quarter. 
Obviously a P-
E changes each day (however minutely).

These are the S&P data points.  The only way to figure an "average"
P-E for each year would be to take the roughly 250 trading days and
average them.  There are non-public databases that would enable you to
do this, such as the University of Chicago's Graduate School of
Business, which has compiled the CRSP database:
http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/research/crsp/

However, a level of detail that fine is only going to be in private
databases.

BTW, if you'd like to compare a different period for 1996-2001 (so
that it matches the earlier years) please let me know and I'll look up
the P-E's.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA