Given concerns in the market about tariffs and a potential economic slowdown, have more S&P 500 companies than normal commented on recession during their earnings conference calls for the first quarter?
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 “recession” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from March 15 through May 15.
Of these companies, 121 cited the term “recession” during their earnings calls for the first quarter. This number is well above the 5-year average of 79 and the 10-year average of 59. This number is also more than nine times higher than the number recorded in the previous quarter (13).
In fact, this quarter marks the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “recession” on earnings calls for a quarter since Q4 2022 (147).
On a percentage basis, the term “recession” has been cited on 27% of the 451 earnings calls conducted by S&P 500 companies since March 15.
At the sector level, the Financials (28) and Industrials (27) sectors have the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “recession” on earnings calls for Q1 2025, while the Real Estate (40%), Financials (39%), and Industrials (36%) sectors have the highest percentages of S&P 500 companies citing “recession” on earnings calls for Q1 2025.
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