Highest Number of S&P 500 Companies Citing “Tariffs” on Earnings Calls Since Q2 2019

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 new tariffs on China and leaving the door open for future tariffs on Canada, Mexico and other countries, 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 February 6.

Of these companies, 146 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 since Q2 2019 (155). This number also reflects 50% of the 291 S&P 500 companies that have conducted earnings conference calls for the fourth quarter during this period.

If the current pace continues through the remainder of the earnings season, the fourth quarter will record the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for a quarter over the past 10 years. The current record is 185 companies, which occurred in Q2 2018.

At the sector level, the Industrials (39) sector has the highest number of companies citing the term “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q4 2024, while the Materials (82%) and Utilities (80%) sectors have the highest percentages of companies citing the term “tariff” or “tariffs” on earnings calls for Q4.

What are these 146 companies saying about tariffs?

Many of these companies have discussed uncertainty in association with their comments on tariffs. Due to this uncertainty, a number of companies stated they were unable to quantify the impact of tariffs at the time of their earnings call. Of the S&P 500 companies that discussed tariffs in conjunction with any type of guidance or outlook for Q1 2025 or CY 2025, 30 companies excluded the impact of tariffs from their guidance or outlook while 21 companies included the impact of tariffs in their guidance or outlook. A number of companies that included the impact of tariffs did not quantify the impact but cited tariffs as a factor for providing a wider or more conservative guidance range.

A list of the companies that discussed tariffs and guidance and their comments can be found in Appendix 1 on page 37 of the Earnings Insight report.

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