P/E vs. ROE: the 97 largest U.S. companies in four groups — who is expensive and good, who is cheap and weak

How much investors pay for a company’s profit and how much profit the company makes on its shareholders’ money are two different questions. This article puts the 97 largest U.S. companies — those worth more than $100 billion that report quarterly to the SEC in dollars — on both at once: the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) at the October 30, 2026 close, and the return on equity (ROE), both on the last twelve months of reported results. The median P/E of the group is 24.3 and the median ROE is 26.7%, and those two lines split the companies into four groups.

“Cheap” and “expensive” here mean only a P/E below or above the median of this group, and “good” and “weak” only an ROE above or below it. A low P/E can reflect profits expected to fall, and an ROE above 100% usually means shareholders’ equity is small relative to profit. None of this is a recommendation.

Expensive and good

Technology accounts for 13 of the 23. Apple, Nvidia, Mastercard and Fortinet all show an ROE above 100%, which reflects shareholders’ equity that is small relative to profit.

Cheap and good

Alphabet, at 14.6 times earnings with a 44% return on equity, is the largest company in this group. Micron, SanDisk and Western Digital — memory and storage makers — sit here too, with P/E ratios between 9 and 15.

Expensive and weak

Health care has 9 of the 25 companies in this group, including Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth, Thermo Fisher, Abbott and Pfizer.

Cheap and weak

Banks and other financial companies make up 10 of the 24, with returns on equity between 8% and 20%. Berkshire Hathaway’s profit includes unrealized gains and losses on its stock holdings, which makes its P/E swing from year to year.

Who is not on the chart

Eleven companies had negative shareholders’ equity at their latest report — AbbVie, Philip Morris, Dell, McDonald’s, Altria, Starbucks, Lowe’s, McKesson, Booking, Marriott and HCA — so an ROE is not meaningful for them; Seagate and Boeing had negative equity a year earlier. Eight traded above 100 times earnings, including Tesla, AMD, Palantir and Merck. Intel, Gilead and Snowflake lost money over the twelve months. SpaceX has no full year in its 10-K and 10-Q filings yet, and companies that file only annual reports with the SEC, such as TSMC and ASML, are left out.

Twelve months means the latest annual report plus the year to date in the latest quarterly report, minus the same period a year earlier, using the last 10-K or 10-Q filed by October 30. Companies that have announced third-quarter results but not yet filed the 10-Q are measured through June. Earnings per share for Amphenol and Booking, which split their stock in 2026, are on the post-split basis. The figures come from the companies’ 10-K and 10-Q filings with the SEC and the October 30 closing prices. They describe what happened; they are not a forecast and not investment advice.