Fewer S&P 500 Companies Discussing “Inflation” on Earnings Calls for 5th Straight Quarter

With the year-over-year CPI number falling back to the 3% to 4% level over the past few months, did fewer S&P 500 companies comment on inflation during their earnings conference calls for the third quarter relative to recent quarters?

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 September 15 through November 16.

Of these companies, 276 cited the term “inflation” during their earnings calls for the third quarter. This is the lowest number of S&P 500 companies citing “inflation” on earnings calls going back to Q2 2021 (222). It also marks the fifth consecutive quarter in which the number of S&P 500 companies citing the term “inflation” has declined quarter-over-quarter.

However, it should be noted that the number of S&P 500 companies citing “inflation” on earnings calls for Q3 2023 is still well above the 5-year average of 224 and the 10-year average of 173.

It should also be noted that there are still about 30 S&P 500 companies that have not reported earnings for the third quarter. Thus, the final number of companies citing “inflation” will likely be higher than the current 276. However, it is unlikely the final number will finish above the previous quarter’s number of 298.

At the sector level, the Financials (52) and Industrials (49) sectors have the highest number of companies that cited “inflation” on earnings calls for Q3. However, the Materials (89%) and Consumer Staples (87%) sectors have the highest percentages of companies that cited “inflation” on their Q3 earnings calls during this period.

The FactSet Earnings Insight report will not be published on November 24. The next edition of the report will be published on December 1.

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