The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that analysts are turning more cautious on U.S. corporate earnings for the first quarter of this year, with the Trump administration's chaotic policies threatening to trigger a global trade war that could undermine economic growth. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that Apple, Tesla and Ford are among companies contributing the most to recently lowered estimates for the quarter, along with some insurers, whose projections have been hurt by fires in California early this year, according to Tajinder Dhillon at LSEG. S&P 500 forecasts for the first quarter of 2025 have fallen by 4.5 percentage points since Jan. 1, the largest downward revision since the fourth quarter of 2023. Earnings growth for S&P 500 companies is now seen at 7.7 per cent year-over-year, which would be the lowest since 2023's third quarter and a big decline from 17.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024, based on Friday's LSEG data. While a handful of companies have already reported on the quarter, the unofficial start of the first-quarter season is still weeks away. "You know there's this negative bias out there. You just don't know to what degree," said Michael O'Rourke at JonesTrading.