As earnings season heats up, a slew of large multinational companies have posted disappointing results and outlooks with a common culprit to blame – a strong dollar.

The impact has crossed sectors ranging from industrials to technology, affecting companies that garner a large portion of their sales from outside the US.

After hitting a six-and-a-half- month low in May, the dollar has surged nearly 20 per cent against a basket of major currencies, putting companies that derive a large portion of their sales from overseas at risk as their products become more expensive for consumers in other currencies.

Microsoft, which gets nearly three-fourths of its revenue from overseas, also succumbed to pressure from the stronger dollar, although the tech giant did not specify the impact. Its shares plunged 10.4 per cent to $42.11, the biggest drop since July 2013.

United Technologies, which gets about 62 per cent of its sales from outside the US, cut its 2015 full-year outlook due to the negative impact from the stronger dollar, sending its shares down more than 1.5 per cent to $117 yesterday.

Fellow industrial 3M Co. shed 0.1 per cent to $164.02 after it posted lower quarterly results and reduced its 2015 outlook due to foreign exchange.

The Post-It notes maker garners more than 60 per cent of its sales from overseas.

“This is a slow-motion crash,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

“The expenses of a lot of these companies are taken in the local currency where they are operating – sales, research and development, whatever their out-of-North America operations are, but then when you roll them back up, it takes a couple of quarters for this to actually be shown.”

Other notable names citing currency headwinds so far in the earnings season include Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and IBM.