Key insights
- An analysis of S&P 500 10-K filings reveals surprising risk exposures. Financials (MS, C, BAC, GS, JPM) express high concern about geopolitical risks and potential credit defaults. Semiconductor companies like NVDA and CDNS are heavily exposed to sanctions and tariffs. Companies like PGR, UNH, NFLX, and COST show minimal concern about war or tariffs. This suggests potential downside risk for financials and semiconductors, while healthcare, consumer staples, and tech may offer relative safety.
everyone is talking about the iran war and trump’s tariffs, but i wanted to see which companies are actually panicking in their official sec filings. i spent my entire weekend digging through the "risk factors" section of the 2 most recent 10-Ks for 98 s&p 500 companies.
i looked for 8 specific themes: tariffs, war, geopolitical, oil/energy, sanctions, supply chain, interest rates, and recession.
here is the data. some of this makes zero sense on paper, but the 10-Ks don't lie.
the "macro risk" top 10 (highest exposure)
|ticker|company|exposure score|key risk mentions| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |MS|morgan stanley|95.6|221 total (massive geopolitical/war)| |C|citigroup|91.2|269 total (highest volume in the scan)| |BAC|bank of america|80.4|102 mentions| |GS|goldman sachs|67.2|heavy institutional/trading risk| |JPM|jpmorgan|62.1|systemic macro exposure| |CVX|chevron|58.0|188 oil/energy mentions (obviously)| |BLK|blackrock|52.1|asset management/global exposure| |EOG|eog resources|50.2|142 oil mentions| |CDNS|cadence|45.6|21 tariff mentions (semis getting hit)| |REGN|regeneron|43.7|36 tariff mentions (surprising for pharma)|
the "safe haven" list (the ones who don't care)
if you're looking for where to hide, these companies basically didn't even mention the war or tariffs in their risk factors:
- PGR (progressive): only 7 mentions total. * UNH (unitedhealth): 6 mentions. * NFLX (netflix): 6 mentions. * COST (costco): 8 mentions.
3 things that surprised me:
- banks are the real "war" stocks: i expected oil companies to be #1, but morgan stanley and citi are screaming about geopolitical risk way louder. they are terrified of credit defaults and trade finance collapsing while the market is at all-time highs. 2. the semiconductor "sanction" trap: nvda (ranked #13) and cdns have massive exposure to sanctions and tariffs. nvda has 50 mentions of "sanctions" alone. the "ai moat" is built on a very fragile geopolitical foundation. if the strait stays closed, the supply chain for chips is toast. 3. pharma is not immune: regeneron (regn) has 36 tariff mentions. i didn't realize how much their supply chain for raw materials is tied to the current trade war.
the "so what?"
the market is pricing in a "soft landing" or a "short war," but the banks are writing 200+ page warnings about systemic collapse. either the banks are being overly cautious for legal reasons, or they are seeing a credit crunch that the retail market is completely ignoring.
i'm personally looking at costco and progressive as the only real "sleep at night" stocks right now.
what am i missing? are the banks just covering their asses with legal boilerplate, or is the risk in the financial sector a legitimate warning for the entire s&p 500?
not financial advice. i'm just a guy who spent too much time on sec edgar this weekend.