Everyone’s worried about the economy, but executives have been talking less about a recession

This summer,

creeping optimism has crashed into July’s flop of a jobs report, President Donald Trump’s widening trade war and signs of its potential impact. Sentiment on the economy and the consumer is muddled. IT consulting firm Gartner Inc. IT last week said even small spending decisions among its corporate clients were getting kicked up to top executives for sign-off — behavior its CEO said they’ve seen in “every recession.”

But overall, executives on quarterly earnings calls have talked about a recession a lot less over the past two months, according to a FactSet analysis published Friday.