Deep Store

The trailing 10-year compound annual growth rate of inflation-adjusted S&P 500 earnings, computed from Shiller's nominal EPS and CPI series. Same monthly cadence as CAPE itself (quarterly post-2000, since Shiller stopped publishing monthly EPS).

Why it matters: CAPE smooths earnings *across* a 10-year window — by design it tells you nothing about the *rate* at which those earnings have been growing. A CAPE of 35 with real EPS growing at 6%/yr is a different regime from a CAPE of 35 with real EPS growth rolling toward zero. This series surfaces the dimension CAPE blends away, and reads naturally side-by-side with the CAPE chart.

How to read it: Long-run average is roughly 2-3% (the structural rate of US real earnings growth). Sustained readings above 5% are growth booms (1960s, late-1990s, post-2010 tech era). Negative readings happen rarely but meaningfully — Great Depression aftermath (1939), early-1950s, post-2008. The combination matters most. "High CAPE + high growth" is late-cycle but justifiable; "high CAPE + decelerating growth" is the dangerous setup that pure CAPE can't see.

Caveats: A 10-year trailing window is itself a smoothed signal — it reacts slowly to recent inflections. Shiller's EPS includes accounting-regime breaks (1990s GAAP changes, 2001 goodwill rules) that show up here as jumps unrelated to real economic earning power.