Are More S&P 500 Companies Citing “Inflation” on Q2 Earnings Calls?

Given concerns in the market about higher oil and gas prices, did more S&P 500 companies comment on inflation during their earnings conference calls for the second quarter compared to the first quarter?

The answer is no. To answer this question, FactSet searched for the term “inflation” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings calls from June 15 through September 10.

Overall, the term “inflation” was cited on 205 earnings calls conducted by S&P 500 companies during this period. This number reflects a quarter-over-quarter decrease of 6% compared to Q1 2026 (217). This number is also well below the 5-year average of 276 and well below the peak number over the past 10 years of 410, which occurred in Q2 2022. In the month of June 2022, the year-over-year increase in CPI peaked at 9.1%.

However, it should be noted that this number is slightly above the 10-year average of 199.

At the sector level, the Industrials (48) sector has the highest number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited, while the Materials (84%) and Consumer Staples (80%) sectors have the highest percentages of earning calls where the term “inflation” was cited.

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, 6 sectors recorded a decrease in the number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited, led by the Health Care (-10) and Utilities (-5) sectors. On the other hand, 5 sectors recorded an increase in the number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited, led by the Information Technology (+6) sector.

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