Nifty Financial Services P/E at 15.3: a six-session low

A multiple at the bottom of its range

Nifty Financial Services closed at 24,946.05 on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, at a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.29. Its price-to-book ratio was 2.30 and its dividend yield 1.00%.

These are NSE's published end-of-day ratios, and the daily history is on the Nifty Financial Services valuation page. Our bank P/B post looked at the narrower bank index; this one covers the broader financials basket, which also holds insurers, non-bank lenders and exchanges.

Six sessions lower, five of them this week

The comparisons start on 31 March 2021, when NSE moved its index P/Es to consolidated earnings. That leaves 1,363 sessions to 6 October.

Of the six sessions with a lower P/E, five fall between 28 September and 5 October 2026, and the sixth was 3 March 2025, at 15.27. So the index has only just arrived at this level, and today's close is a small bounce from the 15.05 low of 1 October.

The same five sessions also hold all five of the lower P/B readings, at 2.27 or 2.28. The median P/B since 2021 is 3.35, so today's 2.30 is about a third below it.

Earnings up, price down

Dividing each close by its P/E gives a rough earnings figure per index point:

Over the past year the index fell 6.6%, while the earnings measure rose 7.4% and book value, worked out the same way from the P/B, rose 12.9%. Over two years the price is up 1.9% and the earnings measure up 16.4%.

So the cheaper multiple is not a sign of shrinking profits. It is a price that has not followed the earnings up.

The fall since February

The index set a record close of 28,463.25 on 18 February 2026 and is now 12.4% below it. In 2026 it is down 9.7% against the Nifty 50's 12.8% fall. From the 30 March low it has recovered 6.1%, but it gave back part of that in September, when the P/E slid from 16.13 at the end of August.

Notably, the P/E on 30 March, at the bottom of the spring sell-off, was 15.35, almost exactly where it is now. The market has had to go back to the same multiple on earnings that are about 6.5% higher.

The yield

The dividend yield of 1.00% is above its median of 0.83% since 2021; only 56 of 1,363 sessions yielded more. It is still low in absolute terms, because financial companies pay out a small share of what they earn, so the yield is a minor part of the story for this index.

What this does not tell you

A low P/E is not a forecast. Our look at whether Nifty P/E predicts returns shows how loose the link is, even for the broad index.

Financial earnings are lumpy. Provisions, one-off gains and changes in the index's members can all move the earnings figure, and the published ratios cannot separate them.

P/B is the usual lens for lenders. Banks and lenders are normally compared on book value, which is why the P/B column matters here as much as the P/E.

This is an index, not a fund. Banking and financial-services funds hold their own mix and often concentrate in a handful of banks. Our fund returns post shows how they have done.

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 banking and financial services funds covers the concentration in a sector fund. For the market as a whole, see the Nifty 50 P/E post for October.