Major industrial companies in the S&P 500 will be reporting in large groups over the coming week, and tariffs are expected to begin taking chunks out of profit shares across the board.
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“Investors are worried about the impact on earnings should the United States’ trade war with China and other major trading partners escalate. Deutsche Bank in June estimated that an escalation of the dispute to include $200 billion of imports would hit earnings growth by 1-1.5 percent. “If today’s political rhetoric intensifies and translates into actual protectionist policies, it will be a negative for all businesses in the U.S. and abroad, including ours,” Hamid Moghadam, chief executive of supply chain management company Prologis, warned on a conference call on Tuesday.
Manufacturers across the country are concerned about Washington’s recent trade policies, with some saying that uncertainty related to tariffs was already hitting them, according to anecdotes collected by the U.S. Federal Reserve in its Beige Book, released on Wednesday.
Since March 1, S&P 500 industrials .SPLRCI have fallen nearly 3 percent, reflecting the sector’s dependence on international commerce. The S&P 1500 steel index .SPCOMSTEEL has lost 1 percent since March 1, as investors worry that a slowdown in global demand could offset U.S. steelmakers’ benefits from tariffs against their foreign competitors.
Many of the roughly 180 S&P 500 companies reporting their results next week are not directly exposed to China, but they may still have reasons for concern. “There are companies that might not be significantly impacted by tariffs from a cost perspective, but from the uncertainty around it,” said Kurt Brunner, a portfolio manager at Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “They could see customers holding off on spending because they don’t know what is going to happen.”
That is starting to show up in early reports by companies. Earnings from Honeywell International, General Electric and Stanley Black & Decker show companies facing higher costs due to already enacted tariffs, and uncertainty about tariffs on as much as $500 billion in Chinese goods threatened by Trump.
Second-quarter corporate earnings seasons kicks into gear starting on Monday, with results on tap from companies including Corning, Ford Motor, 3M Co and Boeing, which has fallen nearly 2 percent since the start of March.
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