The 5 Most Interesting Analyst Questions From Rush Enterprises's Q1 Earnings Call
Is now the time to buy RUSHA? Find out in our full research report (it's free).
Revenue: $1.85 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.83 billion (1.1% year-on-year decline, 1.4% beat)
Adjusted EPS: $0.73 vs analyst estimates of $0.72 (1.4% beat)
Adjusted EBITDA: $147 million vs analyst estimates of $146.4 million (7.9% margin, in line)
Operating Margin: 5%, in line with the same quarter last year
Market Capitalization: $4.06 billion
While we enjoy listening to the management's commentary, our favorite part of earnings calls are the analyst questions. Those are unscripted and can often highlight topics that management teams would rather avoid or topics where the answer is complicated. Here is what has caught our attention.
Daniel Imbro (Stephens) asked about new unit sales trends and customer purchasing behavior through the quarter. CEO Rusty Rush explained that demand was shaped by ongoing uncertainty, with some customers pausing purchases due to tariff and emissions regulation changes.
Daniel Imbro (Stephens) followed up on the softness in parts and service revenues, asking if management expected a return to year-over-year growth. Rush clarified that he anticipated only sequential improvement, citing choppy demand and weather impacts early in the quarter.
Andrew Obin (Bank of America) questioned the outlook for second quarter Class 8 and parts/service sales. Rush indicated slight sequential improvements but stressed the difficulty of forecasting due to volatile policy and market conditions.
Andrew Obin (Bank of America) inquired about cost management and whether expense levels could return to pre-inflation baselines. Rush responded that inflationary pressures have made returning to earlier cost structures unrealistic, but ongoing expense discipline remains a priority.
Avi Jaroslawicz (UBS) probed whether customer hesitancy was driven more by macroeconomic uncertainty or pricing. Rush responded that both factors play a role, with customers needing confidence in their own businesses before committing to purchases, compounded by unpredictable pricing from potential regulatory changes.
In the coming quarters, our team will be monitoring (1) developments in U.S. trade policy and emissions regulations, which could rapidly alter truck pricing and customer demand; (2) the pace of recovery in aftermarket parts and service sales, particularly as weather patterns and miles driven normalize; and (3) the ability of Rush Enterprises to sustain market share gains in vocational and public sector segments. Continued expense discipline and operational flexibility will also be important measures of execution.
Rush Enterprises currently trades at $51.74, up from $51.01 just before the earnings. Is the company at an inflection point that warrants a buy or sell? Find out in our full research report (it's free).
The market surged in 2024 and reached record highs after Donald Trump's presidential victory in November, but questions about new economic policies are adding much uncertainty for 2025.
While the crowd speculates what might happen next, we're homing in on the companies that can succeed regardless of the political or macroeconomic environment. Put yourself in the driver's seat and build a durable portfolio by checking out our Top 5 Growth Stocks for this month. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025).
Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-small-cap company Exlservice (+354% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
7 hours ago
'This Week' Transcript 7-6-25: Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Stephen Miran, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Dr. Richard Besser
A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, July 6, 2024 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive. STEPHANOPOULOS: Want to get more on this now from former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Also the former president of Harvard University. Larry, thank you for joining us this morning. In "The New York Times" this week, you and Robert Rubin, who also served as president -- as Treasury secretary, called this bill dangerous, said it 'posed a huge risk to the economy.' What are those risks? FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY LARRY SUMMERS: George, just to start with, what your people have been describing is the biggest cut in the American safety net in history. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that it will kill, over 10 years, 100,000 people. That is 2,000 days of death like we've seen in Texas this weekend. In my 70 years, I've never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th. These higher interest rates, these cutbacks in subsidies to electricity, these reductions in the availability of housing, the fact that hospitals are going to have to take care of these people and pass on the costs to everybody else, and that's going to mean more inflation, more risk that the Fed has to raise interest rates and run the risk of recession, more stagflation, that's the risk facing every middle-class family in our country because of this bill. And for what? A million dollars over 10 years to the top tenth of a percent of our population. Is that the highest priority use of federal money right now? I don't think so. This is a shameful act by our Congress and by our president that is going to set our country back. STEPHANOPOULOS: Part of the president's argument is that economic growth sparked by the bill will alleviate the dangers that you talk about here. The chair of the Council of Economic Advisers is up next, and his council issued a report this week projecting $11 trillion in deficit reduction from growth, higher tax revenue and savings on debt payments. How do you respond to that? SUMMERS: It is respectfully nonsense. None of us can forecast what's going to happen to economic growth. What we can forecast is that when people have to hold government debt instead of being able to invest it in new capital goods, new machinery, new buildings, that makes the economy less productive. What we can forecast is that when we're investing less in research and development, investing less in our schools, that there is a negative impact on economic growth. There is no economist anywhere, without a strong political agenda, who is saying that this bill is a positive for the economy. And the overwhelming view is that it is probably going to make the economy worse. Think about it this way. How long can the world's greatest debtor remain the world's greatest power? And this is piling more debt onto the economy than any piece of tax legislation in dollar terms that we have ever had. STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Larry, as you know, experts in the past have raised alarm bells about the deficits, and the economy seems pretty resilient in the face of that. SUMMERS: George, the best period we have had in the economy was the economy that -- was the period that Secretary Rubin and I wrote about when we served President Clinton and by acting responsibly on the deficit by listening to the CBO rather than expressing contempt for it, we reduced the deficit, set off a virtual -- virtues circle of increased investment, more growth, lower deficits, lower interest rates, and then around the cycle again. Experts warn about risks. And I can't tell you whether the financial crisis is going to come this year or whether the financial crisis is going to come five years from now. And I'm not going to do cry wolf rhetoric. By the way, I was the one who was saying for a decade after 2010 that deficit reduction didn't need to be a national priority. But anybody who looks at the numbers sees that we've never had deficits remotely like this or the prospect of debts remotely like this at a moment when the economy was strong and we were at peace anytime in our history. This is a risk that we don't need to run, and for what? To give $1 million a year to the top-tenth of a percent while, in effect, sentencing 100,000 poor Americans to death over the next 10 years because they can't get access to necessary medical procedures, because they can't get driven to a hospital, because their family members can't get supported? This is just wrong. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally -- SUMMERS: Look, there are lots of things, George, that you argue about, and Democrats, Republicans have different perspectives. This is that very rare instance where everybody outside of a mainstream sees something very dangerous happen. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, the president's team argued that tariff revenue is going to help make up some of the shortfall. What's your response? SUMMERS: Yeah, it probably will collect some revenue at the cost of higher inflation for American consumers, less competitiveness for American producers. 60 times as many people use -- work in industries that use steel as work in the steel industry, and every one of them is less competitive because of the president's tariffs. So, higher prices, less competitiveness, and not really that much revenue relative to what's being given to the very wealthy in this bill. STEPHANOPOULOS: Larry Summers, thanks very much. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get more on the health care impact now from our former colleague, Dr. Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Rich, thank you for joining us this morning. Your -- your organization said this legislation is going to devastate the U.S. health care system. Spell out why you believe that. DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER CDC ACTING DIRECTOR & ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON PRESIDENT AND CEO: Yes, I mean, George, the -- the -- the -- the piece we just heard laid out some of that. This is the biggest cut to federal support to health care in history. A trillion dollars coming out of that, you know, and it will reverse generations of improvement we had been making in terms of getting people access to health care. The Congressional Budget Office says that over 11 million people will lose access to health care. I worked in community clinics for over 30 years, and in those clinics, some patients had Medicaid and some had no insurance. And I saw the struggle that people would make to determine, 'Should I come in for my health care,' 'Should I pay for my medications,' or, 'Should I use that money for rent, to put food on the table?' This bill will make it so much harder and will put so many more people in that position. STEPHANOPOULOS: Defenders of the president's plan said that the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, as you just cited, has a history of overestimating the coverage cuts, and that most states will find workarounds to these work requirements. How do you respond to that? BESSER: Well, you know, we have an example. Arkansas tried work requirements -- the idea that anyone who should be able to work should work to get benefits. And what they found was that the number of people working didn't go up at all, but over 11,000 people lost their Medicaid insurance. And it not only affects those individuals, which is bad enough, but rural hospitals across America depend on Medicaid dollars to stay in existence. It's predicted that there could be hundreds of rural hospitals that close. Those hospitals are also a driver for businesses. Businesses don't want to move into a community without a hospital. There are so many repercussions of this bill. I don't know how someone can go back to their district and face the people who voted for them after they intentionally are causing so much pain and harm across our nation. STEPHANOPOULOS: Beyond the cuts on Medicaid, there are also some changes for -- to those who are covered by the Affordable Care Act and the overall impact on health insurance costs. What should we expect? BESSER: Well, you know, this -- we all know that the Affordable Care Act wasn't the end game. We're the only wealthy nation in which not every person who lives here has access to health care, but the Affordable Care Act moved us in that direction. But this does nothing to help people who have health insurance but are finding it too expensive. This makes it harder in terms of not providing people with the -- with the extra supplement to help pay for their insurance. So, we're going to see more and more people who are not able to get the care that they need. And what that leads to is that people who were healthy become unhealthy and become unable to work. People with disabilities in particular can be hit hard. One-third of people with disabilities get Medicaid and it helps keep people healthy with disabilities so they can work. That's going to be -- that's going to be a challenge with this. STEPHANOPOULOS: How can organizations like yours fill the gap? BESSER: Well, we can't. What we can do is work with others to put forward a vision of what should be. We should be a nation in which every single person has access to high quality, comprehensive, affordable health care. We're going to be working on that. We're going to be putting forward that message. But we cannot fill the gap from what the government is doing. And there's an assault on health care that's coming from all sides. You know, this bill is doing it to the health care system, to food support. We're seeing it with our secretary of health who's doing it to our vaccine system. There are so many assaults. The National Institutes of Health, which is where our cures and future treatments come from, they're under assault. You know, it's hard to pick one of these, and philanthropy cannot fill those gaps, but we can use our voice to call out the concerns that we see for health broadly across our nation. STEPHANOPOULOS: Rich Besser, thanks very much. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get a response now from Stephen Miran, the Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Steve, thanks for coming in this morning. You just heard Mr. Summers right there. He starts out saying the bill is dangerous, huge risks. STEPHEN MIRAN, CHAIR, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Thanks for having me. Look, I think that there's been a lot of -- a lot of doom mongering, a lot of scare mongering, and this isn't the first time, by the way. During the president's first term, lots of folks said that the president's historic tariffs on China during the first term were going to be terrible for the economy. And there was no lasting evidence of that whatsoever. There was no meaningful economic inflation, no meaningful economic slowdown. Everything was actually pretty OK in response to the tariffs last time. And thus far again, this time, we've had a repeat of the same performance whereby lots of folks predicted that it would end the world, there would be some sort of disastrous outcome. And once again, tariff revenue is pouring in. There's no sign of any economically significant inflation whatsoever, and job creation remains healthy. STEPHANOPOULOS: Job creation does remain healthy. But let's talk about the Bill to begin. I want to get back to tariffs in a second. This increase in the debt, he says that every major economist who doesn't have a political agenda, agrees that this is going to pose a danger to the economy because of the increased debt service payments. MIRAN: Yeah, I don't think that's -- I don't think that that's true at all. And I think the historical record is on our side. It's the same combination of policies, tax cuts, deregulation, trade renegotiation, and energy abundance that gave us astounding economic growth in the president's first term, 2.8 percent until the pandemic. And that's exactly what we forecast again, very similar numbers. STEPHANOPOULOS: That was one year. MIRAN: No, no, no, 2017 to 2019. The annualized rate over those three years was 2.8 percent. Right? Very high economic growth as a result of these same policies. And that's just a statistical fact. And so, what the people who predict big deficits don't understand is that economic growth is going to soar in response to these policies. If you give massive incentives for investment, huge incentives for new factories, full expensing on new factories, full expensing on equipment, full expensing on R&D expenditures, that incentivizes more of this stuff. You're going to get more people investing in factories as a result of these tax benefits. More investment means more income. More income means more tax revenue. And as a result, deficits go down. STEPHANOPOULOS: Why should we not believe the CBO when they say that something approaching a little more than 11 million people are going to be -- are going to lose their healthcare coverage because of the Medicaid cuts? MIRAN: Well, because they've been wrong in the past. When Republicans repealed the individual mandate penalty during the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in the president's first term, CBO predicted that there was going to be about 5 million people losing their insurance by 2019. And you know what? The number was not very significantly changed at all. It was a tiny fraction of that. And so, they've been wrong in the past. And look, if we don't pass the -- if we didn't pass the Bill, eight to nine million people would've lost their insurance for sure, as a result of the biggest tax act in history creating a huge recession. The best way to make sure people are insured is to grow the economy, get them jobs, get them working, get them insurance through their employer. Creating jobs, creating a booming economy is always the best way to get people insured. STEPHANOPOULOS: On tariffs, the deadline, the president's deadline is approaching for the deals. We've only seen three deals so far. What should we expect next? MIRAN: Well, I'm still optimistic that we're going to get a number of deals later this week. Part of that is because all the negotiating goes through a series of steps that lead to -- that lead to a culmination timed with the deadline. But it's important that countries line up to make concessions to get those deals, to convince the president that they should get lower tariff rates. And thus far, it's been happening. The president has very successfully used leverage and the threat of tariffs to get companies to create -- to grant concessions to open their markets to U.S. goods. STEPHANOPOULOS: But we've only seen an agreement with Britain. It's really just the framework of an agreement. We've seen the agreement with Vietnam. Where are the other deals? MIRAN: Well, I'm -- as I said, I'm still expecting a number to come this week. The Vietnam deal was fantastic. It's extremely one-sided. We get to apply a significant tariff to Vietnamese exports. They're opening their markets to ours, you know, applying zero tariff to our exports. It's a fantastic deal for Americans. STEPHANOPOULOS: So, if the -- but if these other deals don't come in this week, will the president be extending the deadline? MIRAN: Well, my expectation would be that countries that are negotiating in good faith and making the concessions that they need to, to get to a deal, but the deal is just not there yet because it needs more time, my expectation would be that those countries get a roll, get, you know, sort of, get the date rolled. STEPHANOPOULOS: Like which countries are those? MIRAN: Well, I mean, I think we're seeing lots of good progress on a variety of countries. You know, I -- to be clear, I'm not a trade negotiator. I'm not involved in the details of these talks, but I hear good things about the talks with Europe. I hear good things about the talks with India, you know? And so, I would expect that a number of countries that are in the process of making those nego -- making those concessions, you know, they might see their date rolled. For the countries that aren't making concessions, for the countries that aren't negotiating in good faith, I would expect them to sort of see higher tariffs. But, again, the president will decide -- you know, the president will decide later this week, and in the time following, whether or not the countries are doing what it takes to get access to the American market like they've grown accustomed to. STEPHANOPOULOS: We saw new jobs numbers come in this week. As I said, the economy seems pretty resilient. But underneath the overall numbers, there does seem to be some slowdown among private sector job creation. Concerned? MIRAN: Well, it's not really a concern because of the huge incentives we have to unleash growth in the -- in the near future. The One Big, Beautiful Bill is going to create growth on turbocharge. Cutting regulations, cutting red tape so that companies can invest, build higher when and where they want instead of spending years begging permission from Washington is going to turbocharge growth. Opening foreign markets to U.S. exports by getting concessions through trade renegotiation is going to turbocharge growth. Low energy prices like the president is achieving, lowest gas prices since 2021 at the pump is going to turbocharge growth. And all that's to come. STEPHANOPOULOS: You say this is all going to turbocharge growth. We have seen some experience with this back -- in Ronald Reagan's day, back in 1981. He had huge tax cuts. The growth didn't come, and they had to end up raising taxes for several years after that. Concerned that could happen again? MIRAN: Well, like I said before, you know, history's on our side. If you look at what happened in the president's first term, growth soared and there was no real material, you know, meaningful long-term decline in revenue. Revenue as a share of GDP was 17.1 percent last year, the same as it was before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. So, you got this huge surge in growth as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. There was no material long-term decline in revenue. Corporate revenue even went up as a share of GDP from 1.6 to 1.9 percent. And the growth delivered. And we expect the same thing to happen this time.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
More than 200 S&P 500 companies scrubbed 'diversity' and 'equity' from annual reports in 2025
More than 200 S&P 500 (^GSPC) companies scrubbed words such as "diversity" and "equity" from their annual reports in 2025, according to Freshfields, a law firm and data provider, and nearly 60% fewer S&P 500 companies are using the phrase "diversity, equity, and inclusion." These new counts provided by Freshfields reinforce a widening corporate retreat from DEI this year after scrutiny of diversity policies intensified in Washington, D.C. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order ending federal DEI programs and ordering US agencies to "combat illegal private sector DEI actions." Some big companies, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), McDonald's (MCD), Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan (JPM), Target (TGT), and Tractor Supply (TSCO), have proactively announced about-faces on their diversity policies. Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton told Yahoo Finance last month that the company's goal in changing its DEI policies was to "remove" itself "from any sort of discourse that people viewed to be political or social in its orientation." Many are also swapping out words such as 'diversity" and "equity' from their annual reports and instead using terms like inclusion, belonging, and meritocratic workplace. "We're observing a shift in language," ISS-Corporate executive director Kosmas Papadoupoulos said. Bank of America (BAC) and BlackRock (BLK) were among the firms on Wall Street that made such changes. Bank of America removed all eight references to "diversity and inclusion" in its report filed in February, compared with its filing the year before. In several places, the nation's second-largest bank replaced "diversity" with "opportunity," including renaming the diversity and inclusion group within its human resources department the opportunity and inclusion group. BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, also removed four references to "diversity" in its latest annual report, including replacing a section titled "diversity, equity and inclusion" with one called "connectivity and inclusivity." JPMorgan Chase has also dropped almost all mentions of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" from its annual report and rebranded its diversity programs to "opportunity" initiatives. What's not happening so far in 2025 is any shareholder support for DEI changes of any type, for or against. None of this season's investor-led DEI-focused proposals that went to a vote received majority shareholder approval, though the percentage of "anti-DEI" filings compared to "pro-DEI" filings has jumped in recent years. Support across DEI proposals for S&P 500 firms hovered between 0.1% to 43.9%, Freshfields found, with support for proposals opposed to DEI below 2%. Freshfields and other firms that track the measures identify anti-DEI measures as those that are skeptical of the initiatives and have an end goal to curtail or eliminate them. Pro-DEI proposals, on the other hand, are considered those that preserve or enhance a company's focus on the initiatives. This year, 57 S&P 500 companies faced 65 DEI-related measures, 26 of which were anti-DEI measures. Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit that promotes environmental and social justice issues, called this year's DEI campaigns "triumphant" based on shareholders' rejection of anti-DEI measures. That included defeats for anti-DEI measures proposed at major US companies like Apple (AAPL), Goldman Sachs (GS), Costco (COST), Levi Strauss (LEVI), Deere (DE), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), and Disney (DIS). Softer language added to corporate filings may help avoid the ire of Trump's executive orders, Behar said, but additional factors are influencing DEI, such as the SEC's updated guidance in February that makes it easier for companies to exclude shareholder proposals, particularly those related to social issues. Prior guidelines required the SEC to consider a proposal's "broad societal impact" when reviewing a company's "no-action requests" that can keep proposals off their voting agendas. New guidance instead says the SEC can consider a company's particular facts and circumstances. On top of that, there's a lot of uncertainty for companies that are federal contractors, Behar said, after the US Supreme Court ruled that federal district courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions. A district court in Maryland issued an order enjoining Trump's DEI executive order, but the Fourth Circuit appellate court ruled that the order could stand but applies only to contractors' DEI programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws. "As of Friday, now ... nobody knows what to do," Behar said. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
More than 200 S&P 500 companies scrubbed 'diversity' and 'equity' from annual reports in 2025
More than 200 S&P 500 (^GSPC) companies scrubbed words such as "diversity" and "equity" from their annual reports in 2025, according to Freshfields, a law firm and data provider, and nearly 60% fewer S&P 500 companies are using the phrase "diversity, equity, and inclusion." These new counts provided by Freshfields reinforce a widening corporate retreat from DEI this year after scrutiny of diversity policies intensified in Washington, D.C. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order ending federal DEI programs and ordering US agencies to "combat illegal private sector DEI actions." Some big companies, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), McDonald's (MCD), Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan (JPM), Target (TGT), and Tractor Supply (TSCO), have proactively announced about-faces on their diversity policies. Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton told Yahoo Finance last month that the company's goal in changing its DEI policies was to "remove" itself "from any sort of discourse that people viewed to be political or social in its orientation." Many are also swapping out words such as 'diversity" and "equity' from their annual reports and instead using terms like inclusion, belonging, and meritocratic workplace. "We're observing a shift in language," ISS-Corporate executive director Kosmas Papadoupoulos said. Bank of America (BAC) and BlackRock (BLK) were among the firms on Wall Street that made such changes. Bank of America removed all eight references to "diversity and inclusion" in its report filed in February, compared with its filing the year before. In several places, the nation's second-largest bank replaced "diversity" with "opportunity," including renaming the diversity and inclusion group within its human resources department the opportunity and inclusion group. BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, also removed four references to "diversity" in its latest annual report, including replacing a section titled "diversity, equity and inclusion" with one called "connectivity and inclusivity." JPMorgan Chase has also dropped almost all mentions of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" from its annual report and rebranded its diversity programs to "opportunity" initiatives. What's not happening so far in 2025 is any shareholder support for DEI changes of any type, for or against. None of this season's investor-led DEI-focused proposals that went to a vote received majority shareholder approval, though the percentage of "anti-DEI" filings compared to "pro-DEI" filings has jumped in recent years. Support across DEI proposals for S&P 500 firms hovered between 0.1% to 43.9%, Freshfields found, with support for proposals opposed to DEI below 2%. Freshfields and other firms that track the measures identify anti-DEI measures as those that are skeptical of the initiatives and have an end goal to curtail or eliminate them. Pro-DEI proposals, on the other hand, are considered those that preserve or enhance a company's focus on the initiatives. This year, 57 S&P 500 companies faced 65 DEI-related measures, 26 of which were anti-DEI measures. Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit that promotes environmental and social justice issues, called this year's DEI campaigns "triumphant" based on shareholders' rejection of anti-DEI measures. That included defeats for anti-DEI measures proposed at major US companies like Apple (AAPL), Goldman Sachs (GS), Costco (COST), Levi Strauss (LEVI), Deere (DE), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), and Disney (DIS). Softer language added to corporate filings may help avoid the ire of Trump's executive orders, Behar said, but additional factors are influencing DEI, such as the SEC's updated guidance in February that makes it easier for companies to exclude shareholder proposals, particularly those related to social issues. Prior guidelines required the SEC to consider a proposal's "broad societal impact" when reviewing a company's "no-action requests" that can keep proposals off their voting agendas. New guidance instead says the SEC can consider a company's particular facts and circumstances. On top of that, there's a lot of uncertainty for companies that are federal contractors, Behar said, after the US Supreme Court ruled that federal district courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions. A district court in Maryland issued an order enjoining Trump's DEI executive order, but the Fourth Circuit appellate court ruled that the order could stand but applies only to contractors' DEI programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws. "As of Friday, now ... nobody knows what to do," Behar said. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices
