Many can't. For instance:- "These revisions are also in keeping with the overall market, as earnings growth and margin expectations for the S&P 500 at large have been revised up since March, according to FactSet's data. Margins for most companies in this sector — which is comprised mostly of food and beverage distributors or retailers — are already trim, and organic top-line growth is generally capped by how fast the overall economy is expanding. These companies, then, are most preoccupied with not only higher costs but costs that rise quickly — because their path to earning profits is already narrower than businesses in faster growing sectors like technology."
So the quote you listed is actually saying that margins expectations (and earnings growth) have been revised up. In fact later in the article it states about your highlighted companies "The solution to protecting margins for these companies, then, is simple: raise prices." In reality, we are not seeing companies, even those with thin margins, being hurt by inflation. And from a general economics point of view, you wouldn't expect inflation to per se hurt a company's profits. If inflation hurts the economy overall, company profits would be hurt but it would be due to the bad economy rather than the specific P&L of a company being specifically impacted by inflation. I think a more interesting discussion would be if there are any specific companies you can think of who wouldn't be able to raise prices for some systemic reason and therefore would be specifically hurt by inflation, not just everyone with low margins? Just thinking off the top of my head, maybe medical companies who get most of their revenue from medicare, which only adjusts the maximum rates they pay once a year or even less often? Companies with multi-year fixed contracts with the government who haven't hedged their raw material and labor costs?
The type of companies mentioned having low margins ........ also have little room to raise prices. Think food and clothing chains battling Wal-Mart "Low Prices" and Amazon Prime delivery. As well as some manufacturers still dealing with the tRump tariffs and rising raw materials costs overall with worldwide over capacity for such things as steel and aluminum.
I asked my colleague, John Thorpe, for his input on the subject and wanted to share: It is my belief that Inflation expectations at a more robust level had already been priced into the market. When CPI was released on the 10th, it reflected a rapidly increasing rate of inflation, but when you drilled down into the numbers, a large portion of the inflation measure was attributable only to one category, Used Car sales. Since the Fed makes it’s rate decisions, partially from another measure of inflation, PCE, the market rapidly discounted the price of gold. Over 1 year ago, Pre-Pandemic, Gold was trading in the 1590.00-1600.00 oz, range. Expectations for higher inflation due to both monetary and fiscal stimulus took the prices up over $2000.00 oz. immediately following the March 2020 lockdowns. Currently, with gold trading $150.00 per ounce higher than pre-pandemic levels, a rate of inflation higher than the 2% fed target actually reflects that modest inflationary increase. While some believe the price of tangible asset inflation should be much higher than current levels, current levels are reflecting higher prices.
All this makes sense, but its just crazy to think that gold is still cheaper today than 10 years ago in 2011. What else is cheaper than 10 years ago!!!
Gasoline, Pentium 4 computers, flat screen monitors and TVs, solar panels, wind turbines, lithium chemistry batteries, satellite launch on a per kg basis,.....and one could go on for quite a while.
It's because real yields are negative and inflation expectations over the next decade are still low. A short-term pop in inflation expectations (12-24 months) is not enough to drive a sustained rally in gold. On the flipside, gold mining has become more efficient, and the supply dynamics have improved.