Record U.S. Capital Spending Is Last Thing the Market Wants

If you’re an American chief executive officer with a couple million dollars to blow, you may want to think twice before using it to expand plants or add equipment.

That’s the message from equity markets, where shares of companies using the biggest portion of their cash on capital expenditures in 2014 trailed those that spent more on dividends and buybacks, according to data compiled by Barclays Plc. While the underperformance didn’t keep corporate investment from hitting a record last year, the rate of growth in repurchases was higher.