Russell 2000 P/E of 2470 is correct

Alright, I just got from a long week-end and upon arriving home, what do I do? I just launch my home-made spreadsheets to get the PER of the US indices, since the quarterly are almost finished now.

This is a little bit scary, because the indices PERs are still very high:

• Dow Jones 30: 77 (no kidding, thanks to GM and its huge losses)
• S&P 500 : 23 (still very very high, compared to historical averages)
• Nasdaq Composite: 27 (according to WSJ).

Regarding the Dow, even if there's a huge miracle, and that GM makes even (EPS of 0$) we still get an PER of 17 for the DJ INDU, which is not small, given that the financial stocks may sink in the DJ as well as many other components that are at historical high values. Notably:

1. JNJ -1%
   
2. IBM -3%
   
3. WMT -6%
   
4. MCD -9%

And they all have PERs of more than 15...

UPDATE: I just found this on the WSJ. No wonder my shorts on the Russell 2000 are not bringing any money!! The companies are collapsing, but the index is still holding!

NOTICE TO READERS: The Russell 2000 P/E of 2470 is correct. The EPS are very small because of write offs and such in the current quarter.