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

Earnings

By John Butters  |  May 16, 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 has been implementing new tariffs and negotiating tariff deals in recent months, have S&P 500 companies commented on tariffs 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 “tariff” and “tariffs” 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, 411 have cited the term “tariff” or “tariffs” during their earnings calls for the first 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 260 companies, which occurred in the previous quarter (Q4 2024).

On a percentage basis, the terms “tariff” or “tariffs” have been cited on 91% of the 451 earnings calls conducted by S&P 500 companies since March 15.

At the sector level, the Industrials (72) and Financials (62) sectors have the highest number of companies citing the terms “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q1 2025, while the Consumer Staples (100%), Materials (100%), and Real Estate (100%) sectors have the highest percentages of companies citing the term “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q1 2025.

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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.