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Highest Number of S&P 500 Companies Citing “Tariffs” on Earnings Calls Over Past 10 Years

Earnings

By John Butters  |  March 7, 2025

During each corporate earnings season, companies may comment on government policies that could have an impact on their business in the current quarter or in future quarters. Given the Trump administration implementing tariffs during the past week, have S&P 500 companies commented on tariffs during their earnings conference calls for the fourth 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 “tariff” and “tariffs” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from December 15 through March 6.

Of these companies, 259 have cited the term “tariff” or “tariffs” during their earnings calls for the fourth quarter. This marks the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “tariff” or “tariffs” on quarterly earnings calls over the past 10 years (using current index constituents going back in time). The previous record-high number during the past 10 years was 185 companies, which occurred in Q2 2018.

At the sector level, the Industrials sector has the highest number of companies (55) citing the term “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q4 2024, while the Materials sector has the highest percentage of companies (82%) citing the term “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q4 2024.

It is interesting to note that the four sectors (Materials, Industrials, Consumer Discretionary, and Consumer Staples) that have the highest percentages of companies citing “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q4 are also the four sectors that have seen the largest cuts to EPS estimates for Q1 to date. For more details on estimate revisions, read Analysts Making Larger Cuts Than Average to EPS Estimates for S&P 500 Companies for Q1

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This blog post is for informational purposes only. The information contained in this blog post is not legal, tax, or investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.

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John Butters

Vice President, Senior Earnings Analyst

Mr. John Butters is Vice President and Senior Earnings Analyst at FactSet. His weekly research report, “Earnings Insight,” provides analysis and commentary on trends in corporate earnings data for the S&P 500 including revisions to estimates, year-over-year growth, performance relative to expectations, and valuations. He is a widely used source for the media and has appeared on CNBC, Fox Business News, and the Business News Network. In addition, he has been cited by numerous print and online publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Times, MarketWatch, and Yahoo! Finance. Mr. Butters has over 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to FactSet in January 2011, he worked for more than 10 years at Thomson Reuters (Thomson Financial), most recently as Director of U.S. Earnings Research (2007-2010).

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The information contained in this article is not investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.