Summary
S&P 500 executives and analysts have almost stopped talking about a recession. From July to September 2026, someone on the call discussed the chance of an economy-wide recession on 2 of 477 earnings calls, 0.42%, the lowest share in our sample since January 2024.
It was 7.6% in early 2024, when some banks still expected a mild one, and 19.7% in April to June 2025, after the April tariff announcements. That scare faded within a quarter: the share was back to 3.0% by July to September 2025.
Analysts raised a recession on 46 calls in April to June 2025 and on none from July to September 2026. The only recession companies still describe is the freight recession, which came up on more calls last quarter than an economy-wide one.
What executives talk about instead is affordability. The words "affordable" or "affordability" were on 25.6% of calls last quarter, the highest share in the sample, including every utility call and 19 of 30 consumer staples calls.
Abstract
We read every sentence containing the word "recession" on the earnings calls of the companies in the S&P 500, 5,306 calls by 495 companies held from 1 January 2024 to 23 October 2026, using the speaker-by-speaker transcripts in the Equibles earnings call archive. A call counts as discussing a recession when an executive or analyst talked about the chance, risk, forecast or absence of a recession in the US, the world or another national economy, or planned for one in guidance or scenarios. Historical recessions, industry recessions such as the freight recession, safe-harbor boilerplate and generic statements that a business holds up in recessions are left out. We report the share of calls by quarter, by sector and by who raised it, and compare it with the use of "affordable" and "affordability" on the same calls.
The lowest share since 2024
From July to September 2026, an executive or analyst discussed the chance of an economy-wide recession on 2 of 477 S&P 500 earnings calls, 0.42%. The two were Paychex, whose payroll data covers small businesses, and Morgan Stanley.
The word itself came up on 10 calls, and most of those uses were about something else: the freight recession on four calls, a housing recession that ended years ago, a tribute to Fastenal's departing chief executive, whose career ran "through multiple cycles, multiple recessions", and a line in Amazon's safe-harbor statement.
The decline was under way before 2025. In early 2024, many executives were still explaining forecasts made a year earlier. Walmart's chief financial officer said in February 2024:
“At that time, there was a broad belief that we would enter a recession, but fortunately, we avoided that.”
John David Rainey, chief financial officer, Walmart, earnings call, 20 February 2024
By January to March 2025 the share was down to 1.9%. Then it jumped tenfold.
| Quarter | Calls | Economy-wide recession discussed | Share | Raised by an analyst |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan to Mar 2024 | 476 | 36 | 7.56% | 8 |
| Apr to Jun 2024 | 480 | 20 | 4.17% | 6 |
| Jul to Sep 2024 | 484 | 23 | 4.75% | 7 |
| Oct to Dec 2024 | 487 | 14 | 2.87% | 0 |
| Jan to Mar 2025 | 473 | 9 | 1.90% | 4 |
| Apr to Jun 2025 | 472 | 93 | 19.70% | 46 |
| Jul to Sep 2025 | 466 | 14 | 3.00% | 3 |
| Oct to Dec 2025 | 460 | 7 | 1.52% | 0 |
| Jan to Mar 2026 | 467 | 7 | 1.50% | 1 |
| Apr to Jun 2026 | 469 | 9 | 1.92% | 2 |
| Jul to Sep 2026 | 477 | 2 | 0.42% | 0 |
| Oct 2026, to the 23rd | 95 | 1 | 1.05% | 0 |
The April 2025 scare
The calls held from April to June 2025, the first after the tariff announcements of 2 April, discussed a recession on 93 of 472 calls. The big banks reported early in the season, and several cited their own economists.
“I spoke with our economist, Michael Feroli, this morning to get insight into their current forecast. They currently see about a 50% chance of a recession.”
Jamie Dimon, chief executive, JPMorgan Chase, earnings call, 11 April 2025
“Our economists' expectation for growth in the US has fallen meaningfully from over 2% to 0.5%. The prospect of a recession has increased with growing indications that economic activity is slowing down around the world.”
David Solomon, chief executive, Goldman Sachs, earnings call, 14 April 2025
“The odds of recession have risen substantially and higher inflation is all but certain, to what degree is an open question.”
Evan Greenberg, chairman and chief executive, Chubb, earnings call, 23 April 2025
Some companies put a recession into their numbers. United Airlines gave two outlooks, one of them for a recession:
“While we've seen stability in demand for the past six weeks, we acknowledge the real risk of the US economy entering a recession. If we do enter a recession, we model an additional five-point reduction in total revenue for the remainder of the year, on average per quarter.”
Mike Leskinen, chief financial officer, United Airlines, earnings call, 15 April 2025
Linde built one into the middle of its quarterly guidance:
“This range assumes recessionary conditions at the midpoint, translating to roughly 2% EPS headwind from lower volumes.”
Matt White, chief financial officer, Linde, earnings call, 1 May 2025
Prologis's chief executive declined to forecast one:
“But I don't think you're looking to our call for predictions about whether we're going to have a recession or not, there are better sources you can go for that.”
Hamid Moghadam, chief executive, Prologis, earnings call, 16 April 2025
Real estate companies discussed a recession on 12 of their 29 calls that quarter and financial services companies on 22 of 66. Every sector had at least one.
Analysts stopped asking
Analysts drove much of the spike. They raised a recession on 46 of the 93 calls in April to June 2025, often to ask how a business would hold up in one.
“If we get into a recession, I hope we don't, how do you think about the stability, the sustainability, and revenue volatility of Microsoft today if we were to get into a recession?”
Mark Moerdler, analyst, Bernstein Research, on Microsoft's earnings call, 30 April 2025
The next quarter they raised it on 3 calls. From July to September 2026 they raised it on none.
By January 2026, executives were describing the recession forecasts in the past tense.
“One, the recession that everyone had been predicting as imminent forever didn't happen.”
Christopher Gorman, chief executive, KeyCorp, earnings call, 20 January 2026
What remains is mostly preparation rather than prediction. In April 2026 the largest banks talked about readiness without expecting one:
“I'm not forecasting anything. I'm simply saying for J.P. Morgan, we have to be prepared for a recession and that, you know, you can have stagflation.”
Jamie Dimon, chief executive, JPMorgan Chase, earnings call, 14 April 2026
“It's been a long period of time without what I call a normal credit cycle, meaning a meaningful slowdown in the economy or a recession.”
David Solomon, chief executive, Goldman Sachs, earnings call, 13 April 2026
“We don't think that's likely this year or in the foreseeable future, but we have a recession readiness playbook, and that includes what we will do on the expense side if it happens.”
Stephen Steinour, chairman and chief executive, Huntington Bancshares, earnings call, 23 April 2026
Who still says it
Paychex is the most regular voice. Its chief executive said its small-business data showed no sign of a recession on six of its calls since March 2025, including the latest:
“So we've not seen anything in the macro environment, still not seeing any signs of a recession. In fact, in the quarter, our out-of-business and financial stress losses were actually improved.”
John Gibson, chief executive, Paychex, earnings call, 23 September 2026
The only October call so far to discuss one was Morgan Stanley's, where the chief executive said he would not bet on the benign mix of low rates, low inflation and no recession, while discussing how private equity firms will bring companies to market:
“And I think it is probably a longer odds bet that we are going to have a low interest rate, low inflation, non-recessionary environment. I think that I would not bet on that, in which case you really have to think about what old school corporate finance looks like for these companies.”
Ted Pick, chief executive, Morgan Stanley, earnings call, 14 October 2026
The freight recession
The recession companies do describe is in trucking and rail. Freight volumes have been weak since 2022, and the railroads, truckers and freight software companies call it the freight recession. It came up on 4 calls from July to September 2026, twice the number that discussed an economy-wide recession.
“Let's face it, we've had basically four years that we've navigated through a freight recession. And we've been waiting for this to break. This is the longest freight recession in history.”
Mark George, chief executive, Norfolk Southern, earnings call, 23 July 2026
Some now see it ending:
“After four years of a freight recession, we are seeing initial green shoots in the market.”
Rob Painter, chief executive, Trimble, earnings call, 12 August 2026
What they talk about instead
Executives who no longer talk about a recession talk about affordability. The words "affordable" or "affordability" were on 19.1% of calls in January to March 2024 and on 25.6% in July to September 2026, the highest share in the sample, just above the 25.5% of January to March 2026.
The rise is concentrated in the companies that sell to households. Every utility call last quarter used one of the words, and consumer staples companies used them on 19 of 30 calls, against about a third of their calls in 2024.
Food companies describe consumers who are employed but stretched:
“Purchasing powers is up, but consumers remain very concerned about affordability, the economic outlook, and job security.”
Dirk Van de Put, chairman and chief executive, Mondelez International, earnings call, 28 July 2026
“As consumers continue to face economic pressure, affordability remains a major focus for us.”
Steve Cahillane, chief executive, Kraft Heinz, earnings call, 5 August 2026
For home improvement it is the cost of owning a house:
“They do continue to have strong balance sheets, steady job growth, but I think as Marvin was hinting to, affordability remains kind of the major concern, and that's across rates.”
Brandon Sink, chief financial officer, Lowe's, earnings call, 19 August 2026
For utilities it is the electricity bill, and the politics around it:
“So, obviously, that's a pro-affordability message at a time where that's top topic in Sacramento.”
Patricia Poppe, chief executive, PG&E, earnings call, 23 July 2026
“Let me just begin by saying that we share Governor Shapiro's focus on affordability.”
Calvin Butler, chief executive, Exelon, earnings call, 30 July 2026
The affordability count is a word count, not a reading of each use. It includes product descriptions such as an "affordable" price tier as well as worries about household budgets, so it measures how much the subject is on executives' minds, not how worried they are.
Methodology
Source: speaker-by-speaker transcripts of earnings calls in the Equibles earnings call archive. Only calls classified as earnings calls are counted.
Sample: the companies in the S&P 500 at the latest index snapshot, and every earnings call they held with a transcript of at least 1,500 words from 1 January 2024 to 23 October 2026, keeping the longest transcript where a company has more than one in a quarter and excluding six calls whose transcript is stored on calls in two different quarters. That leaves 5,306 calls by 495 companies. All sectors are included. Sectors are the company's classification on Equibles; seven calls by companies without a sector are in the totals but not in the sector charts.
Candidates: every sentence by any speaker that contains "recession", "recessions" or "recessionary".
Economy-wide recession discussed: a speaker talked about the chance, risk, forecast or absence of a recession in the US, the world or another national economy, planned for one in guidance or scenarios, or looked back on recent recession forecasts. We read every sentence counted this way. Left out: past recessions (the Great Recession, "through past recessions"), recessions in one industry (freight, housing, industrial), safe-harbor statements, generic statements that a business holds up in recessions, and the description of a bank's loan-loss model that repeats each quarter. We sorted these with word rules and read the excluded sentences from July 2025 on; before that we read the calls the rules put on the borderline.
Freight recession: a sentence that uses "freight", "trucking" or "truckload" with "recession".
Analysts and executives: the speaker's role in the transcript. A call can count for both.
Affordability: any use of "affordable" or "affordability" by any speaker, counted by machine and not read by hand.
Periods: the calendar quarter of the call date. October 2026 runs to the 23rd and is shown in the table only. Each call counts once in each measure, whatever the number of mentions on it.
Limitations
The labels are judgments. A question about how a business would do "in a recession" counts the same as a forecast of one, because both put the possibility on the call. A company that avoids the word and talks about a "slowdown" or "softer demand" is not counted.
The transcripts are made from the call audio, and most calls since January 2026 come from a different transcription process than earlier ones. Where both processes covered many calls in the same quarter, from April to December 2025, they gave similar shares (17.1% against 20.6% in April to June 2025, 3.8% against 2.6% in July to September), so the change does not explain the trend.
The sample is today's S&P 500, so companies that left the index since 2024 are not in the early quarters. Earnings calls mostly report on the previous quarter, so talk on a call trails the news by weeks. The counts after mid-2025 are small: a single company, such as Paychex, is a large part of each quarter's total.
Conclusion
Recession talk on S&P 500 earnings calls has fallen to its lowest level since at least the start of 2024. The April 2025 scare lifted it to a fifth of calls for one quarter, mostly at banks and real estate companies and often at analysts' prompting, and it was gone by the summer. Last quarter, only Paychex and Morgan Stanley discussed an economy-wide recession, and the freight recession got more mentions.
That is not the same as executives being confident about consumers. The word they use now is affordability, on a quarter of calls and on most consumer staples and utility calls. Executives describe a customer who has a job but is choosing carefully what to spend on.
The data behind this study, including every call's transcript, is on each company's page on Equibles. Our earlier study Are Companies Still Talking About Tariffs? tracks the subject that started the April 2025 spike.