The Nimbleness of Corporate America Is on Display: Thomas Black

The nimbleness of corporate America is on full display this earnings season, with a little assist from fiscal policy.

US manufacturers for the most part have tweaked their doom-and-gloom scenarios from late April, when they had just been shell-shocked by the Liberation Day tariffs announced by President Donald Trump. Outlooks in their second-quarter earnings conference calls have been along the lines of: “It’s not quite as bad as we thought.”

Industrial companies are absorbing some of the tariff blow and have pulled many levers to cope, including front-loading inventories, seeking alternative suppliers, reducing the variety of goods for sale and raising ...