Number of S&P 500 Earnings Calls Citing “Inflation” Increased for 3rd Straight Quarter

Given the increase in the Consumer Price Index in recent months, did more S&P 500 companies comment on inflation during their earnings conference calls for the first quarter compared to 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 “inflation” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings calls from March 15 through June 11.

Overall, the term “inflation” was cited on 220 earnings calls conducted by S&P 500 companies during this period. This number reflects a quarter-over-quarter increase of 11% compared to Q4 2025. It also marks the third consecutive quarter in which the number of earnings calls citing “inflation” has increased.

However, it should be noted this number is still well below the peak number over the past 10 years. The current record for the highest number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited over the past 10 years is 411 in Q2 2022. In the month of June 2022, the year-over-year increase in CPI peaked at 9.1%.

At the sector level, the Industrials (48) sector has the highest number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited, while the Consumer Staples (85%) and Materials (81%) sectors have the highest percentages of earning calls where the term “inflation” was cited.

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, 6 sectors recorded an increase in the number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited, led by Industrials (+10), Consumer Staples (+8), and Health Care (+7) sectors. On the other hand, 3 sectors recorded a decrease in the number of earnings calls where the term “inflation” was cited, led by the Information Technology (-4) sector. Two sectors (Communication Services and Real Estate) recorded no quarter-over-quarter change. 

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