Nifty 50 P/E at 21.67: below its five-year median

Where it closed on Thursday

The Nifty 50 closed at 24,765.90 on Thursday, 5 March 2026, at a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.67. Its price-to-book ratio was 3.37 and its dividend yield 1.26%.

These are NSE's own published figures, one reading per day after the close. The daily series is on our Nifty P/E ratio page.

The index is 5.9% below its record close of 26,328.55, set on 2 January 2026, when the P/E stood at 22.92. March has started lower too: the index closed February at 25,178.65 and is down 1.6% since.

Against five years of the same yardstick

Every comparison below starts on 31 March 2021, the day NSE switched the index P/E to consolidated earnings. From then until 5 March 2026 there were 1,217 trading sessions.

• P/E: 355 of the 1,217 sessions closed lower than 21.67, so Thursday's reading sits at about the 29th percentile. The low was 18.92 on 17 June 2022, the high 33.61 on 8 April 2021.
• P/B: only 58 sessions closed lower than 3.37, under 5% of the period. The low was 3.26 on 12 August 2025, the high 4.88 on 20 July 2023.
• Dividend yield: 1.26% against a median of 1.28%. On 679 sessions the yield was higher.

So the three measures give three answers: below the middle on earnings, near the bottom on book value, and about average on dividends.

Why the history starts in 2021

On 30 March 2021 the Nifty 50's published P/E was 40.43. The next day it was 33.20, while the index slipped about 1%, from 14,845.10 to 14,690.70.

Profits did not change overnight. NSE changed which profits it divides by: standalone company earnings until then, consolidated earnings (including subsidiaries) from 31 March 2021. The switch cut the ratio by about 18% in one session, so readings from before and after are on different scales.

The full record goes back to 1999, with a low of 10.68 on 27 October 2008 and a high of 42.00 on 8 February 2021. On that long record, 3,930 of 6,734 sessions closed below Thursday's 21.67. But most of those days use the old method, so we do not place Thursday's number among them.

Prices fell this year; over a year they outran profits

From the record on 2 January to 5 March:

• The index fell 5.9%.
• The P/E fell 5.5%.
• Dividing one by the other, the earnings behind the index slipped about 0.5%.

So this year's lower P/E is a price story. The profits behind the index have barely changed since January.

Over twelve months the picture flips. On 5 March 2025 the index closed at 22,337.30 at a P/E of 19.86. Since then the index is up 10.9% and the P/E up 9.1%, which implies earnings up only about 1.6%. A year ago the ratio was lower than it is now.

The price-to-book ratio explains why one measure looks cheap and the other does not. It moved from 3.33 to 3.37 while the index rose 10.9%, so the book value behind the index grew about 9.6%. Net worth grew several times faster than profits, which keeps the P/B near its low while the P/E sits merely below its middle.

What this does not tell you

It is not a timing signal. A P/E below its median says the index is less expensive than usual against its own recent past. It says nothing about the next month or the next year.

The "E" looks backwards. It is the last twelve months of reported profit. If coming results are weaker, the current 21.67 was flattered by a figure that will not hold.

Five years is a short record. It holds one sharp fall (2022) and one long rise. Its median is a reference point, not a fair value.

It describes the index, not your fund. A large-cap or flexi-cap fund owns a different mix at different weights.

Where to go from here

The Nifty P/E ratio page has the daily history and a page for each NSE index. The guides on how to read an index P/E ratio and on whether the market is expensive cover the arithmetic and its limits.

For what the index did last month, see the February 2026 market recap.