More companies than ‘normal’ are withdrawing guidance for the quarter as uncertainty about tariffs looms, UBS analyst says
A hypothetical: You’re lost in the woods, on a dark and stormy night, with no gas in your car and not a person in sight. Your phone is dead.
Basically: You have no idea where you’re going. Like, truly. So, when a cherubic anthropomorphic woodland creature comes by asking for directions, you definitely can’t offer any guidance.
And then all of a sudden…umm…tariffs fall from the sky.
We might’ve taken some artistic liberties with that last bit, but you get the idea. CFOs are in the metaphorical woods right now, and it’s no shocker that a growing number of companies are withdrawing forward-looking guidance.
“I certainly understand the instinct,” Jack McCullough, founder of the CFO Leadership Council, told CFO Brew. “There’s too many variables. If some things all go the right way, you might have a great year, but if only two of them do, it’s a different outcome.”
Increasingly, CFOs seem to be assuming that those variables aren’t going to line up in their favor. “Some percentage of companies—more than normal—will just be saying [they] don’t have the visibility to provide discrete guidance for the quarter,” David Lefkowitz, head of US equities at UBS Global Wealth Management, told Morningstar.
Up until quite recently, things were chugging along. FactSet analyzed comments on annual EPS guidance for the 23 S&P 500 companies that reported Q1 results through April 10, and found that 70% commented on EPS guidance, with 14 companies providing full-year guidance.
But some cracks were already starting to show. On April 8 and 9, two heavy hitters in different industries—Delta Airlines and Walgreens—withdrew guidance. Walgreens was, admittedly, doing its own thing: The company withdrew guidance because of its upcoming acquisition. But Delta was ringing the alarm bell, citing “current uncertainty” as the reason for pulling its full-year guidance for 2025.
The same week, medical device maker Belluscura pulled its guidance because of tariffs on China, where the company said a “significant proportion” of its components are manufactured. Soon after, more and more companies were following suit.
On April 10, Logitech International, the computer parts maker, withdrew fiscal 2026 guidance “given the continuing uncertainty of the tariff environment.” Frontier Group, parent company of Frontier Airlines, said it couldn’t reaffirm its previous guidance due to the uncertain economic environment.
The same day, CarMax abandoned “the timing of its financial goals due to the potential impact of broader macro factors.” On an earnings call, CEO Bill Nash took a practical stance. “Why put a target out there that’s really speculative, not knowing exactly where this environment is going to go?” he said. “We just think that’s the prudent thing.”
The next day, British toymaker Character Group dropped its forecast because the companybehind beloved brands like “Peppa Pig” and “Teletubbies” expects the impact of tariffs on China to come through in Q2.
Alas, a lot of us are looking a bit lost at the moment. We wouldn’t want to navigate through a dark, stormy woodland either.
This report was originally published by CFO Brew.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com