Election Looms Larger Over S&P 500 This Earnings Season

U.S. companies are increasingly tempering their outlook by referring to November’s presidential election, according to Savita Subramanian, chief U.S. equity strategist at Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit. Thirty-three of the S&P 500 Index’s first 114 companies to post third-quarter results referred to the election on conference calls, according to data compiled by Merrill and cited Monday in a note. A total of 85 companies mentioned the election in the third quarter of 2012, up from 32 four years earlier.