Given concerns in the market about evolving tariff policies, have more S&P 500 companies than normal cited the term “uncertainty” 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 “uncertainty” 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, 381 cited the term “uncertainty” during their earnings calls for the first quarter. This number is well above the 5-year average of 224 and the 10-year average of 179. This number is also more than double the number recorded in the previous quarter (187).
In fact, this quarter marks the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “uncertainty” on earnings calls for a quarter since Q1 2020 (393). The number for Q1 2025 is also the second-highest number recorded over the past 10 years, trailing only Q1 2020.
On a percentage basis, the term “uncertainty” has been cited on 84% of the 451 earnings calls conducted by S&P 500 companies since March 15.
At the sector level, the Industrials (69) and Financials (68) sectors have the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “uncertainty” on earnings calls for Q1 2025, while the Financials (96%), Real Estate (93%), and Industrials (92%) sectors have the highest percentages of S&P 500 companies citing “uncertainty” 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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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.
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