Retailers Close Out the Q1 Earnings Season with Mixed Results

Published: May 19, 2025.

• With 92% of S&P 500^® companies reporting for the Q1 reporting season, EPS growth currently stands at 13.6%

• Four S&P 500 companies reporting in the next few weeks have delayed their earnings dates:  Nordson Corp, Synopsys Inc., Dollar General, and The J.M. Smucker Company 

• The Q1 earnings season continues to wind down this week with only 965 companies set to report.

What started out as a very uncertain Q1 earnings season ended on a relatively positive note. 

With 92% of the S&P 500 reporting at this point, EPS growth for the first quarter of 2025 ends at roughly 13.6%, double the expectation at the beginning of the season, and the second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. That’s with 78% of companies beating bottom-line expectations, and 62% beating top-line expectations.¹

The retailers are closing out the season in their usual fashion, but the early results have been mixed as they deal with headwinds ranging from a softening US consumer to impending tariffs.

Early Retailers Reporting Mixed Results

The retailer of all retailers, Walmart, kicked off the last leg of the Q1 earnings season when they released results on Thursday. The company was able to surpass Wall Street’s bottom-line estimates, but missed slightly on the top-line. A same-store sales increase of 4.5% surpassed analyst expectations, driven by robust growth in groceries and health and wellness.²

Yet the part of the earnings call that likely led to the stock falling roughly 4% after the report, had to do with cost increases due to tariffs. Despite some tariffs being paused, or being reduced, the world’s largest retailer still had to pass higher prices onto consumers in April and May. Speaking on the matter, CEO Doug McMillon said "We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible, but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins.”³

Other consumer-facing companies out with earnings last week echoed similar sentiment around tariffs. German footwear maker, Birkenstock, also said they plan to raise prices globally in order to offset the impact of the universal 10% tariff for items imported into the US. However the company doesn’t necessarily expect this to impede demand which has been very strong in the US, and now expects 2025 revenue growth to hit the high end of its forecast range of 15 - 17%.⁴

US Macro Check-In

Surprisingly, despite the implementation of a 10% universal tariff last month, a key inflation gauge unexpectedly moved lower in April. The U.S. Consumer Price Index rose an annual 2.3% in April, the smallest increase since February 2021.⁵

Retail sales for April also came out last week, showing a 0.1% increase MoM, on pace with expectations, but slowing from the 1.7% observed in March when consumers front-loaded major purchases ahead of tariff implementations.⁶ The April report showed a marked slowdown in consumer spending across several categories. 

Next week, we get clues to the state of the US housing market when April U.S. Existing Home Sales are released on Thursday and U.S. New Single-Family Home Sales on Friday. These forward-looking economic event dates and more are now available in our new Economic Calendar with data licensed from Econoday Inc.

US CEOs Remained Steadfast in Q2 Despite Headwinds

Despite how consumers might be feeling, corporate confidence remained high for the second quarter in a row in Q2. After rising to its highest level in four years during the last quarter of 2024, the Late Earnings Report Index (LERI), our proprietary measure of CEO uncertainty, has been below the historical benchmark in the first half of 2025.

The LERI tracks outlier earnings date changes among publicly traded companies with market capitalizations of $250M and higher. The LERI has a baseline reading of 100, and anything above that indicates that companies are feeling uncertain about their current and short-term prospects. A LERI reading under 100 suggests that companies feel they have a pretty good handle on the near-term.

The official post-peak season LERI reading for Q1 earnings season (data collected in Q2) stands at 83, well below the baseline reading, suggesting companies were still feeling okay in the second quarter despite uncertainty surrounding US trade policy. As of May 9, there were 114 late outliers and 123 early outliers.

Source: Wall Street Horizon

On Deck This Week

The first quarter earnings season continues to slow down from here, with only 965 companies set to report this week, many within the retail space. Investors will be focused on names such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, TJX Companies and Ross Stores.



Source: Wall Street Horizon

Outlier Earnings Dates This Week

Academic research shows that when a company confirms a quarterly earnings date that is later than when they have historically reported, it’s typically a sign that the company will share negative news on their upcoming call, while moving a release date earlier suggests the opposite.⁷

For the remaining weeks of the Q1 earnings season we get results from a handful of large companies on major indexes that have pushed their Q1 2025 earnings dates outside of their historical norms. Four companies within the S&P 500 confirmed outlier earnings dates in the next three weeks, all of which are later than usual and therefore have negative DateBreaks Factors*. Those names are Nordson Corp (NDSN), Synopsys Inc (SNPS), Dollar General Corporation (DG) and The J.M. Smucker Company (SJM).

* Wall Street Horizon DateBreaks Factor: statistical measurement of how an earnings date (confirmed or revised) compares to the reporting company's 5-year trend for the same quarter. Negative means the earnings date is confirmed to be later than historical average while Positive is earlier.

Q1 Earnings Wave

The Q1 earnings season winds down this week with only 965 names expected to report. Thus far, 82% of companies have reported actual results (out of our universe of 11,000+ global names).

Source: Wall Street Horizon

1 Earnings Insight, FactSet, John Butters, May 16, 2025, https://advantage.factset.com
2 Walmart reports first quarter results, May 15, 2025, https://stock.walmart.com
3 Earnings call transcript: Walmart’s Q1 2026 Earnings Beat Expectations, Investing.com, May 15, 2025, https://www.investing.com
4 Birkentstock Reports Strong Fiscal Second Quarter 2025 Ahead of Annual Guidance, May 15, 2025, https://www.birkenstock-holding.com
5 April Consumer Price Index Summary, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 13, 2025, https://www.bls.gov
6 Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, US Census Bureau, May 15, 2025, https://www.census.gov
7 Time Will Tell: Information in the Timing of Scheduled Earnings News, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Eric C. So, Travis L. Johnson, Dec, 2018, https://papers.ssrn.com

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