The Earnings Impact of Tariffs

The initial impact of the April 2025 tariff announcement was in the shape of a significant downward adjustment to earnings estimates. The resulting negative estimate revisions reflected the full impact of the announced tariffs. But as tariff levies got delayed and the eventual tariff rates turned out to be smaller than initially expected, analysts ended up revising their estimates higher. All of this happened in the first half of 2025, in the weeks following the April tariff announcements. 

3M MMM, Proctor & Gamble PG, and McCormick MKC are the latest bellwether operators to cite the impact of tariffs while discussing their outlook for the current and coming quarters. For Proctor & Gamble, margins were down for the fifth quarter in a row as tariff headwinds offset the benefit of price increases in the U.S. market. Margin issues were a recurring theme at McCormick as well, with tariffs a major contributing factor. These are hardly the only companies that see tariffs as a headwind to their earnings outlook, as heard recently from Levi Strauss, Fastenal and many others. 

With respect to the Q4 earnings season scorecard, we now have results from 143 S&P 500 members or 28.6% of the index’s total membership. Total earnings for these 143 index members are up +14% from the same period last year on +8.3% higher revenues, with 76.9% beating EPS estimates and 55.2% beating revenue estimates. 

For more details about the Q4 earnings season, please check out our weekly Earnings Trends report here >>>Taking Stock of the Q4 Earnings Season

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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