Inflation Making Corporate America Anxious as Holidays Approach

  • Earnings calls show executives worried about sticky prices
  • Reports from Walmart, Target to show how consumers are faring

Pedestrians in the Magnificent Mile shopping district of Chicago, US.

Photographer: Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg
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Corporate America is signaling that angst around price pressures runs deep, even as the Federal Reserve’s campaign to tame inflation by raising interest rates is bearing fruit and likely approaching an end.

Among corporate managers, sentiment around inflation has soured to a degree last seen in early 2021, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence studyBloomberg Terminal of transcripts from earnings calls this reporting cycle. Anxiety about labor costs is mounting as well, giving Wall Street analysts covering companies more ground for concern.