Identity Crisis in S&P 500 as Range of Valuations Narrows
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The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, one of the most diverse benchmarks for stocks in America, is starting to resemble a collection of clones.
Three years of virtually uninterrupted gains for the U.S. gauge have resulted in 77 record closes since 2012 and a valuation quirk that some see as a sign of indiscriminate buying. A measure of how much price-earnings ratios among the 50 biggest companies vary has fallen to almost the lowest on record, data compiled by Bloomberg show.