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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