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Every quarter, public companies hold earnings calls, where executives present results and take questions from analysts. Equibles counted two words across those calls for companies in the S&P 500, and the results surprised me.
First, recession has almost disappeared from the conversation. From July to September 2026, someone on a call discussed the chance of an economy-wide recession on 2 of 477 calls. In early 2024 it was 8.2% of calls, and right after the April 2025 tariff announcements it was 22.2%. Analysts, whose job is to press management on risks, raised it on none of the calls last quarter. The only recession executives still describe is a freight recession in trucking and shipping.
Second, the word that took its place is affordability. “Affordable” or “affordability” came up on 25.6% of calls last quarter, the highest share since at least early 2024. Every utility used it on its call, and so did 19 of the 30 consumer staples companies, the makers of groceries and household goods.
What I take from it as an index fund investor: the companies themselves are not describing a downturn. They are describing customers whose budgets are stretched by the price level, which tends to show up slowly, in sales volumes and profit margins, rather than in one dramatic quarter.
The full count, with the quotes from the calls, is here: Recession talk has vanished from earnings calls.
Has anyone here changed their spending or their investing because of prices, rather than because of recession fears?
The near-disappearance of recession talk is interesting. I can’t remember who said it or where I read it, but I once came across the idea that a thing is most likely to happen once the noise around it has died down. I don’t know whether any research backs that up, but it’s a thought-provoking contrarian angle.
To answer your question, I can think of only one change to my buying habits because of prices, and it goes in the opposite direction. I occasionally enjoy chocolate, and my preferred brand has reformulated under cost pressure, adding palm oil and other cheaper ingredients to keep the price down. I’ve started buying more expensive chocolate instead, because I don’t appreciate the cocoa mass being replaced with filler.
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