Marketplace®
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It’s windy in corporate America!

Ford, Stanley Black & Decker and Twitter were among 18 companies citing “headwinds” in earnings reports. What are they talking about?

What do we mean when we say "headwinds?"
What do we mean when we say "headwinds?"
Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Skimming through all of the corporate earnings reports that have been coming out this week, we were struck by how many times we saw a word that we use a lot ourselves on “Marketplace”: headwinds.

The word is corporate speak for “challenges.”

Today alone, it showed up in the quarterly reports of 18 companies. By contrast, the word “tailwinds” only shows up in three reports.

The prevalence of headwinds isn’t a coincidence. It reflects ongoing challenges in the United States and global economies.

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