Are More S&P 500 Companies Citing “Inflation” on Earnings Calls for Q1?

Given concerns in the markets about tariffs and inflation, was there a significant increase in the number S&P 500 companies commenting on inflation during their earnings conference calls for Q1 2025 relative to recent quarters?

The answer is no. 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 March 15 through June 13.

Of these companies, 228 cited the term “inflation” during their earnings calls for the first quarter. This number is consistent with the average number of S&P 500 companies that have cited “inflation” on their earnings calls over the past four quarters (Q1 2024 through Q4 2024) of 231.

This number is also below the 5-year average of 254 and marks the 5^th straight quarter in which less than 250 S&P 500 companies cited the term “inflation” on quarterly earnings calls.

However, it should also be noted that the number of S&P 500 companies citing “inflation” on earnings calls for Q1 2025 is still well above the 10-year average of 189.

At the sector level, the Industrials Financials (46) and Financials (40) sectors have the highest number of companies that cited “inflation” on earnings calls for Q1. However, the Consumer Staples (86%) and Materials (81%) sectors have the highest percentages of companies that cited “inflation” on their earnings calls for Q1 during this period. 

The FactSet Earnings Insight report will not be published on June 20. The next edition of the report will be published on June 27.

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