Deals
Spending on Capex, M&A Loses Favor With U.S. Firms, UBS Says
- S&P 500 may see earnings support versus Russell 2000: survey
- Buybacks, dividends, R&D spending get more priority, firm says
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American executives set buybacks and dividends as their top priority for deploying capital around the turn of this year, and sharply curbed their expectations for capital spending, according to a survey from UBS Group AG.
Even with the U.S.-China phase-one trade deal in the offing, business investment “collapsed” as a priority, the UBS Evidence Lab survey of 450 senior executives about expectations for the coming 12 months showed. The percentage of firms seeing some acceleration in capital spending fell 15 percentage points compared with a June survey, while the proportion expecting some slowdown increased by 3 percentage points, the report said.