Nifty Chemicals P/E at 41.9, P/B near its lowest yet

The reading

Nifty Chemicals closed at 27,969.45 on Friday, 9 October 2026, at a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.89. Its price-to-book ratio was 3.68, and its dividend yield as of 8 October was 0.58%.

These are NSE's end-of-day ratios, and the daily series is on the Nifty Chemicals valuation page. The two ratios point different ways. The P/E is a little below its middle. The P/B has been lower on only one session in the index's record, the day before.

What is in it

Twenty companies, and not all of them make chemicals in the usual sense. The Groww Nifty Chemicals ETF held them like this on 30 September 2026; the P/Es are BSE's figures for 9 October:

The largest member, Solar Industries, makes explosives. Pidilite sells adhesives. Six members are agrochemical or fertiliser companies (UPL, Coromandel, PI Industries, Deepak Fertilisers, Chambal and Sumitomo Chemical) and together weigh 25.6%. The top five make up 53.9%. One member, Tata Chemicals, has negative trailing earnings, so its P/E prints as -7.6.

A short record

NSE's P/E series for this index in our data starts on 10 March 2025. That is 391 sessions, about 19 months, so there is no five-year range to compare against.

155 of the 391 sessions closed at a lower P/E, which puts today at the 40th percentile. The low came on 30 March 2026, the same day the index set its 2026 closing low of 24,936.00.

The P/B tells a plainer story. At 3.68 it is well below its median of 4.23, and only one session was lower: 3.66 on 8 October. The high, 4.84, came on 30 June 2025, the day of the index's record close.

Book rose, price did not

The last column is the index divided by its P/E, a rough stand-in for earnings per index unit. Over the year the index fell 4.2% and the P/E 5.6%, so the earnings figure rose about 1.5%. The path was not smooth. It climbed into December, then fell 13.8% in a single session on 6 May 2026, a day the index rose 2.5%. It is 9.2% below its December level now.

Book value did more. Dividing the index by its P/B, the book behind it rose about 11.7% over the year, and 12.2% since 6 May. With the price down, that is what pulled the P/B to the bottom of its range. P/B divided by P/E, a rough return on equity, is 8.8% today against 9.7% a year ago. A low return on a growing book is why a P/E above 40 can sit beside a P/B below 4.

Against the Nifty 50

Chemicals cost 2.17 times the Nifty 50 on earnings (41.89 against 19.27). Over 391 shared sessions the median multiple is 2.04, and 242 sessions had a lower one. The range runs from 1.67 (27 January 2026) to 2.58 (16 April 2025). A year ago it was 1.99.

Over the past year chemicals got 5.6% cheaper on their own P/E, but the Nifty 50's P/E fell faster, from 22.27 to 19.27, which is why the multiple rose.

The index is 12.3% below its record close of 31,895.46 on 30 June 2025, and 9.6% below its 2026 high of 30,947.10 on 21 July. It has risen 12.2% from the March low.

Where the funds sit

Three passive funds track the index: the Kotak Nifty Chemicals ETF, whose NAV history starts in November 2025, the Groww ETF from January 2026, and the Invesco India Nifty Chemical Index Fund, a new member of the index fund category whose first NAV is dated 8 October 2026. No active fund in our data has chemicals in its name; these stocks turn up inside broader portfolios and some sectoral and thematic funds.

What this does not tell you

Nineteen months is not a history. The median and the record low cover one stretch of the cycle, and NSE's index record in our data is too short to say what is normal.

The ratios move in steps. The 6 May drop shows how one quarter's results, or a change in members, can move the P/E by almost a fifth in a day. The published figures do not say which it was.

Stock P/Es vary widely. Across all twenty members they run from 7.8 (Chambal Fertilisers) to 93.6 (Linde India), plus one loss-maker. Our post on the median stock P/E shows how far a typical stock's P/E sits from an index's.

None of this is a recommendation to buy or sell anything.

Where to go from here

The guide to reading an index P/E explains what the ratio can and cannot say, and the guide to sectoral and thematic funds covers the risk of a one-sector bet. For the broad market, see the Nifty 50 P/E against its history.