Will S&P 500 Companies Withdraw EPS Guidance for 2025?

During each corporate earnings season, companies often provide guidance on expected earnings for future quarters or for the full year. However, given the uncertainty around tariffs, will companies have difficulty providing an estimate for future earnings? To date, how many companies in the S&P 500 have provided or updated EPS guidance for 2025 during the Q1 earnings season? Have any S&P 500 companies withdrawn or not confirmed previous annual EPS guidance for 2025?

To answer these questions, FactSet searched for comments on annual EPS guidance in the earnings releases, presentations, and conference call transcripts of the 23 S&P 500 companies that had reported actual results for Q1 through April 10. Of these 23 companies, 16 (70%) commented on EPS guidance for the current year (or next year).

Of these 16 companies, 14 provided EPS guidance for FY 2025 (or FY 2026). Of these 14 companies, 3 provided annual EPS guidance that was lower than the previous guidance issued by the company, 6 maintained previous annual EPS guidance, and 4 provided annual EPS guidance that was higher than the previous guidance issued by the company. One company initiated annual EPS guidance for the first time (for FY 2026), so there was no prior guidance for comparison.

On the other hand, 2 companies stated that they were withdrawing or not providing updates to previous EPS guidance for FY 2025: Walgreens Boots Alliance and Delta Air Lines. Walgreens Boots Alliance cited its upcoming acquisition as the reason for withdrawing annual EPS guidance in the company’s earnings release: “Given the pending transaction, pursuant to which WBA will be acquired by entities affiliated with Sycamore Partners, the company is withdrawing fiscal 2025 guidance.” Delta Air Lines cited economic uncertainty as the reason for not updating annual EPS guidance in the company’s earnings release: “Given current uncertainty, Delta is not reaffirming full year 2025 financial guidance and will provide an update later in the year as visibility improves.”

The market will certainly be watching to see if more S&P 500 companies withdraw annual EPS guidance for 2025. The last time a large number of S&P 500 companies withdrew annual EPS guidance was during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The FactSet Earnings Insight report will be published one day early next week on April 17.

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