Few S&P 500 Companies Are Commenting on the Crisis in Ukraine

During each corporate earnings season, it is not unusual for companies to comment on subjects that had an impact on their earnings and revenues in a given quarter, or may have an impact on earnings and revenues in future quarters. Given the concerns in the market about a possible military invasion of Ukraine by Russia, have S&P 500 companies commented on the situation in Ukraine on their earnings calls for the fourth quarter?

Searching for Mentions of "Ukraine" in Conference Call Transcripts

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 “Ukraine” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from December 15 through February 17.

Of these companies, 18 have cited the term “Ukraine” on their earnings calls for the fourth quarter, which is well above the five-year average of four. In fact, this is the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “Ukraine” on earnings calls since Q3 2014 (23). Over the past 10 years, the highest number of S&P 500 companies that have cited “Ukraine” on their quarterly earnings calls is 40, which occurred in Q1 2014.

However, it should be noted that this number only reflects 4% of the total number of S&P 500 companies that have conducted earnings calls during this period. By contrast, 72% of S&P 500 companies have cited “inflation” on earnings calls over this same period. Of these 18 companies, eight have commented on the situation during the past week.

Low Exposure to Russia and Ukraine Among S&P 500 Companies

On possible reason for the small number of companies commenting on the situation in Ukraine is that S&P 500 companies overall have little revenue exposure to Russia and Ukraine. The combined revenue exposure of the S&P 500 to Russia and Ukraine is about 1%. It is interesting to note that the 25 S&P 500 companies with the highest combined revenue exposure to Russia and Ukraine have seen an average price decline of 9.2% since December 31. Overall, all S&P 500 companies has seen an average price decline of 5.3% since December 31. A list of the 10 S&P 500 companies with the highest combined revenue exposure to Russia and Ukraine can be seen in the chart below.

For a list of the S&P 500 companies that cited Ukraine on their earnings calls, please click the link below to access the full FactSet Earnings Insight report and refer to pages 7-9.

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