Is the S&P 500 cheap right now?
This page tracks the S&P 500 using SPY, the ETF that mirrors the index, as its price series. fairprice.fyi divides that price by its 200-week moving average — a slow, roughly four-year trend — and places the result on a Very Cheap → Very Expensive scale. The live gauge above is the current reading.
What “cheap” and “expensive” mean for S&P 500
Stocks are different from commodities: a broad index tends to grow over time, so it structurally trades above its own 200-week average. The equity bands are set tight and above 1× on purpose to reflect that. Below 1.05× is Very Cheap; 1.05–1.15× is Cheap; 1.15–1.30× is Fair Value; 1.30–1.50× is Expensive; above 1.50× is Very Expensive. This is deliberate: it means the S&P reads Expensive when it is stretched well above its long-term trend — near record highs — rather than pretending an all-time high is “fair.”
S&P 500 at past extremes
The S&P 500 has only fallen below its 200-week average in major bear markets — 2008–09, briefly in 2020, and the 2022 sell-off — and even then rarely by much. Most of the time it sits above that trend, and it reads richer the further it stretches. The point of the tight bands is to make those stretched moments visible instead of normalizing them.
Not financial advice.
Frequently asked
Does this track the actual S&P 500 index?
It uses SPY, the ETF that closely tracks the S&P 500, as a convenient stand-in for the index. Their moves are effectively the same.
Why does the S&P 500 read “Expensive” near all-time highs?
By design. A broad index normally trades above its 200-week average, so the bands are deliberately tight — the goal is to flag when the market is stretched well above trend, not to call record highs 'fair value.'
Is a “Cheap” reading a buy signal?
No. It only means the index is low relative to its own long-term trend, which historically has happened during bear markets. This is a valuation lens, not advice.