Hang Seng (Hong Kong) P/E ratio & earnings growth
Trailing and forward price-to-earnings ratios, CAPE and earnings for Hong Kong, with history back to 1989. For the same measures across every major market see P/E ratios by country.
| Measure | Aug 2026 | Aug 2025 | Chg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trailing P/E ratio | 13.24 | 11.94 | +1.30 |
| Forward P/E ratio | 11.11 | 13.32 | -2.21 |
| CAPE ratio | 10.58 | 10.64 | -0.06 |
Trailing P/E is aggregate market capitalisation divided by aggregate normalised net income over the previous twelve months. Forward P/E uses consensus estimates for the next twelve months.
The 2007 peak is the reference point that makes every later reading look modest. A range produced by a speculative episode is a poor yardstick for the market that exists now.
| Month | Trailing P/E | Forward P/E | CAPE | EPS index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 13.24 | 11.11 | 10.58 | 95.1 |
| 2025 Dec | 12.89 | 13.75 | 10.74 | 98.0 |
| 2024 Dec | 10.04 | 9.74 | 8.61 | 98.5 |
| 2023 Dec | 9.76 | 9.12 | 7.53 | 86.0 |
| 2022 Dec | 8.05 | 10.91 | 9.13 | 121.1 |
| 2021 Dec | 9.39 | 11.93 | 11.36 | 122.8 |
| 2020 Dec | 14.06 | 15.57 | 13.82 | 95.4 |
| 2019 Dec | 11.07 | 10.49 | 14.46 | 125.5 |
| 2018 Dec | 9.95 | 9.83 | 14.32 | 128.0 |
| 2017 Dec | 15.96 | 11.66 | 17.68 | 92.4 |
| 2016 Dec | 10.84 | 11.27 | 13.51 | 100.0 |
Aug 2026 at a glance
Year on year
Where Hong Kong stands, August 2026
Hong Kong trades at 13.24 times trailing earnings, against 11.94 a year ago. Index earnings fell 8% over the year while the index itself rose 2%. The multiple rose because price outran earnings.
At 11.11 forward against a trailing 13.24, analysts are pricing a 19% rise in earnings over the coming twelve months. That is an expectation rather than a forecast with a track record, and the gap is worth reading as the size of what is being assumed.
The CAPE ratio is below the P/E ratio, and that is the story
Hong Kong is the rare market where the cyclically adjusted ratio sits below the trailing one. The arithmetic is simple and the implication is not: CAPE divides price by ten years of average inflation-adjusted earnings, so a CAPE below the P/E means current earnings are lower than that ten-year average.
In most markets the relationship runs the other way, because earnings grow. Hong Kong's have not. Index earnings are lower than they were a decade ago and have fallen over the past five years and the past twelve months.
That single fact explains most of what looks odd about Hong Kong valuations. A market whose denominator has been shrinking will look cheap on a trailing multiple for years without the multiple telling you anything about the businesses underneath.
What the index holds
A large share of the Hang Seng's capitalisation is mainland Chinese companies, particularly banks, insurers and property developers. Reading the index as a statement about Hong Kong rather than about mainland China is the most common mistake made with it.
The China page covers the Shanghai market directly, and the two together are more informative than either alone.
Why "cheap against its own history" misleads here
The historical range is dominated by the 2007 peak. A range whose upper end was set by a speculative episode nobody expects to repeat is not a useful yardstick, and a reading in the lower part of that range says more about 2007 than about today.
Where this data is used
Some examples. Siblis valuation data appears in peer-reviewed journals, central bank publications and the financial press.
The whole database, every trading day
This page publishes one reading a month for 16 countries. The Global Equity Valuations Database is the whole thing.
How this is calculated
Aggregate market capitalisation of the index constituents divided by their aggregate earnings.
- Trailing P/E — Aggregate normalised net income over the previous twelve months. Major purely accounting gains and losses are removed.
- Forward P/E — Consensus estimates for the next twelve months, aggregated the same way.
- CAPE — Price divided by the average of ten years of inflation-adjusted aggregate earnings.
- Earnings — Shown indexed, to provide a common baseline. Index-level earnings per share in Hong Kong dollars are not comparable with other markets in level terms.
- Revisions — Figures are point-in-time. If a company later restates its results, the historic reading is left exactly as first published: the series reflects what was known at the time, not what is known now.
Cite this page
Siblis Research. (2026). Hong Kong (Hang Seng) P/E ratio and earnings [Data set]. Retrieved 31 August 2026, from siblisresearch.com/data/hang-seng-cape/
@misc{siblis_hang_seng_cape,
title={Hong Kong (Hang Seng) P/E ratio and earnings}, author={{Siblis Research}},
year={2026}, url={https://siblisresearch.com/data/hang-seng-cape/},
urldate={2026-08-31}} Charts on this page may be reproduced free of charge with attribution to Siblis Research and a link to this page.