Given the lower-than-expected CPI number reported this past week, have fewer S&P 500 companies commented on inflation during their earnings conference calls for the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to last year and two years ago?
The answer is yes. FactSet Document Search (which allows users to search for key words or phrases across multiple document types) was used to answer this question. Through Document Search, FactSet searched for the term “inflation” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from December 15 through March 14.
Of these companies, 230 cited the term “inflation” during their earnings calls for the fourth quarter. This number is below the number of 285 for Q4 2023 and below the number of 353 for Q4 2022. The fourth quarter also marks the second-lowest number of S&P 500 companies citing “inflation” on earnings calls going back to Q2 2021 (216), trailing only the previous quarter (228).
However, it should also be noted that the number of S&P 500 companies citing “inflation” on earnings calls for Q4 2024 is still well above the 10-year average of 188.
At the sector level, the Industrials (49) and Financials (46) sectors have the highest number of companies that cited “inflation” on earnings calls for Q4. However, the Consumer Staples (94%) and Materials (75%) sectors have the highest percentages of companies that cited “inflation” on their earnings calls for Q4 during this period.
The FactSet Earnings Insight report will be published one day early next week on March 20.
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