Investment Strategy
1 minute read
There was no summer news slowdown in July. Fiscal policy, monetary policy and corporate earnings remained center stage.
However, while large-cap equities continued to make new highs, the relative weakness in small-cap companies became more apparent. Below, we outline why trade tensions are likely having a more material impact on smaller-sized companies versus their larger peers.
In the face of the highest average effective tariff rates in the last century, the strength of the S&P 500 over the past few months has many wondering: Are equity markets really a consistent representation of the health of the U.S. economy?
The short answer: Not exactly, but it depends on where you look.
A clear trend emerges in this year’s returns when examining market cap sizes. The S&P 500 (large cap) has outpaced the S&P 600 (small cap) by roughly 11 percentage points. This disparity became more pronounced as tariff concerns grew in mid-February, with small caps facing a steeper decline in April (-21%) compared to large caps (-14%) during the height of tariff fears.
Importantly, scale matters. Small companies (S&P 600) tend to have lower profit margins in aggregate (~6.5% versus ~13% for large caps), are more leveraged (current net-debt to EBITDA of roughly 3.7x versus 1.3x for large caps) and have smaller market caps ($1 billion versus ~$15 billion for large caps). This could limit their pricing power, fixed-cost absorption and ability to diversify supply chains. It’s also worth mentioning that smaller firms tend to have smaller legal and accounting teams that can utilize more complex strategies to navigate changes in tariff policy. It’s no surprise then that three-month earnings revisions for small caps show an increasingly negative growth trajectory for 2025 and 2026.
With trade tensions still ongoing, let’s delve into three key factors that influence how tariffs might have more of an impact on smaller importing companies than the large corporations that make up the S&P 500: limited trade partners, a larger reliance on China and a greater difficulty in passing through higher costs to consumers.
A potential advantage for large companies, particularly those in the S&P 500, is their ability to quickly reconfigure supply chains. For instance, recent trade data shows India has surpassed China as the largest exporter of smartphones to the United States. A company such as Apple, with its size and scale, can optimize supply chains to benefit from varying tariff rates across countries. The question for smaller companies is: How many import partner countries do they have compared to larger firms?
From 2020 import data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, it’s clear that smaller importers have less diversified supply chains, which makes sense, given their relatively limited capital. In fact, 94% of firms with one to 19 employees import from just one to four countries, while close to 60% of firms with 500+ employees import from five or more countries. Consequently, small and medium-sized companies face more concentrated supply chains, and likely lack the flexibility of larger firms to quickly navigate varying tariff rates.
The data also reveals that small and medium-sized companies are more exposed to China than larger corporations. With China’s status as the “factory of the world,” it’s logical for these importers to source primarily from there (at least in the beginning). Larger companies also rely on China, but maintain a more balanced import distribution—with China, Mexico and the euro area each contributing around 17%. In other words, this reliance on China means smaller businesses may face higher tariff rates, depending on where trade negotiations settle. At the moment, the average effective tariff rate on China stands close to 50%, which remains well above most other major trading partners.
U.S. companies paying tariff duties on imports have only a few options: absorb the cost through lower profit margins, pass it on to consumers, or some combination of the two. A recent survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta indicates that smaller companies have a lower expected pass-through rate to consumers than larger firms. As shown in the chart below, small businesses expect to cover about 54% of increased tariff costs through 2025 price increases, compared to 65% for larger firms.
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