Beginning this week, America’s corporate bosses will have to publicly address how to gauge and respond to President Donald Trump’s chaos-inducing attempt to massively reorder the global economy.
Talk about an earnings season for CEOs to dread. It’s the most pressure-packed since the outbreak of COVID or the Great Recession.
The CEO’s job when they hold their company’s quarterly earnings calls will be manifold. They will be asked what their views are regarding the historically high tariffs Trump has declared against numerous major trading partners of the U.S., including China, the European Union and Vietnam. They will be asked to provide their expectations for the macro-economic effects.
Will the U.S. be entering a recession soon, they surely will be asked.
On the micro level, investors will be looking for adjustments in companies’ earnings guidance, both for the remainder of this year and next. Downward projections likely will provoke even more selling than those stocks have seen since Trump rolled out his tariff regime April 2 because negative outlooks will be seen as confirmation of what investors merely have anticipated in general terms to this point.
And, lastly, the CEOs will need to outline how they’re responding to this new economic day in America.
Are they continuing or halting planned capital investments? Are cost cuts, including layoffs, possible? Will they pass along their higher tariff-related costs to their customers, and if so, by how much?
In short, this week begins a multi-week process in which leaders of the biggest and most important companies in the U.S. tell the country and the world just how seismic these drastic protectionist policies are for their businesses.
Delta Air Lines will report first-quarter earnings Wednesday. The numbers will be interesting, especially in light of evidence that air travel slowed much more than expected in the first quarter. Delta substantially cut its first-quarter profit outlook about a month ago, but CEO Ed Bastian at the time said he didn’t foresee a recession and thought the turbulence his industry was facing would be “transitory.”
What will Bastian say now? When consumers grow fearful of their future employment, discretionary travel is one of the first expenditures they eliminate. Will we hear Bastian give more credence to the recessionary fears that in part are driving the substantial sell-off on Wall Street?
On Thursday, CarMax will report its first-quarter results, and CEO Bill Nash will hold his investor call first thing Friday morning. The nation’s largest used-car chain has seen its stock fall by 11% since Trump’s tariff announcement.
On the face of it, that Wall Street reaction seems odd, since the expected increase in new car prices from Trump’s tariffs logically should create higher demand for used cars, which aren’t subject to import restrictions. But the concern may be that consumers, again due to fear for their economic futures, may pull back on most big purchases such as vehicles, whether new or used. In addition, if there’s rising unemployment, CarMax, which has a finance arm, may see more borrowers default on their car loans.
Later on Friday, we’ll hear from CEOs of some of the country’s largest financial players, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Dimon, whose words carry more weight on Wall Street and even in the halls of Congress than most other business figures, in January famously advised Americans to “get over it” as he addressed the prospect for Trumpian tariffs.
Dimon’s yearly shareholder letter, released Monday as part of JPMorgan’s annual report, acknowledged that the extreme tariff regime Trump now has unveiled will be a drag on the economy. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains a question, but it will slow down growth,” he wrote.
But Dimon in his letter said there are other issues holding back the U.S. economically, including an unsustainable federal budget deficit and excessive government regulation.
Investors will be keenly interested to hear Dimon elaborate on what he wrote. Even with the change in tone from January, Dimon’s missive remains more open than most of his Wall Street counterparts to the possibility that tariffs can be positive for the U.S. in the long run.
Does the CEO of the nation’s largest bank really think these trade barriers are a good idea, or a policy that can be defended? He’s likely to be pressed on that question.
JPMorgan’s stock dropped nearly 13% after Trump’s move. Since Trump’s inauguration, it’s down 17%.
Locally, the first time investors and others will hear from a major publicly traded Chicago company will be April 16 when United Airlines reports its first-quarter earnings. United’s stock is down 16% since “Liberation Day.”
Ultimately, how the U.S. economy performs is overwhelmingly tied to how consumers behave. If consumers grow cautious and afraid, and thus restrict spending to just the essentials, a recession is all but guaranteed. Couple that trend with the possibility of trade retaliation that reduces U.S. companies’ access to their biggest foreign markets and that’s a recipe for very negative outcomes indeed.
Other economic crises in the recent past were caused by outside events, so CEOs weren’t constrained from speaking honestly to the dangers and their companies’ response. For perhaps the first time in American history, this crisis is due to a choice made by the president of the United States, who has demonstrated time and again he will try to punish those who speak out against him.
Will our CEOs be as honest about the risks of this moment — and their plans in response — as they were during COVID and the Great Recession? For the sake of the country, they need to be.
