A hypothetical: you are lost in the woods, on a dark and stormy night, without gas in your car and not a person in sight. Your phone is dead.
Basically: you have no idea where you are going. Like, really. Thus, when an anthropomorphic wooded creature Chérubin comes by asking for instructions, you certainly cannot offer advice.
And then all of a sudden … Umm … the prices fall from the sky.
We might have taken artistic liberties with this last song, but you have the idea. Financial directors are in metaphorical woods at the moment, and there is no shock that an increasing number of companies are retaining forward -looking advice.
“I certainly understand instinct,” said Jack McCullough, founder of the CFO Leadership Council, to CFO Brew. “There are too many variables. If some things go in the right direction, you might have an excellent year, but if only two of them do it, it’s a different result.”
Increasingly, financial directors seem to assume that these variables will not line up in their favor. “A certain percentage of companies – more than normal – will only say [they] I do not have the visibility to provide discreet advice for the quarter ”, David Lefkowitz, head of American actions at UBS Global Wealth Management, said Morningstar.
Until recently, things were walking. InfactAnalyze the commentsOn the annual EPS directives for the 23 S&P 500 companies which declared the results of the first quarter until April 10, and found that 70% commented on the EPS directives, with 14 companies providing full year councils.
But some cracks were already starting to show themselves. On April 8 and 9, two heavy strikers in different industries – Delta Airlines and Walgreens – with advice. Walgreens certainly did its own thing: the company withdrew the advice due to its upcoming acquisition. But Delta rings The alarm bellQuoting “current uncertainty” as a reason to withdraw its directives in the full year for 2025.
The same week, the manufacturer of medical devices BelluscurapulledIts guidelines due to prices on China, where the company said that a “significant proportion” of its components was manufactured. Shortly after, more and more companies are following the plunge.
On April 10, Logitech International, the computer parts manufacturer,retireGuide to exercise 2026 “Given the continuous uncertainty of the tariff environment”. Frontier Group, parent company of Frontier Airlines, said that it could not reaffirm its previous guidelines due to the uncertain economic environment.
The same day,Abandoned Carmax“The time of its financial objectives due to the potential impact of wider macro-factors.” During a call for results, CEO Bill Nash took a practical position. “Why put a target there which is really speculative, not knowing exactly where this environment is going?” He said. “We just think it’s prudent.”
The next day, the group of British characters has dropped its forecasts because the beloved brands of society like “Peppa Pig” and “Teletubbies” expect the impact of tariffs on China to pass in the second quarter.
Alas, many of us look a little lost at the moment. Nor would we want to sail in a dark and stormy forest.
This report was Originally published by CFO Breevage.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
