Max Nisen, Columnist

Don't Expect a Huge J&J Investment Surge

Its tax-cut windfall will more likely go to dividends and buybacks.

January 23, 2018 at 5:22 PM UTC

Max Nisen is a healthcare analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. He previously wrote for Bloomberg Opinion, Quartz and Business Insider.

1516728277_GettyImages-111986773 — Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Johnson & Johnson kicked off Big Pharma's earnings/what-will-you-do with-your-tax-cut-proceeds season Monday morning. It managed to disappoint on both fronts.

The company met or beat analyst expectations for both fourth-quarter earnings and 2018 guidance. But there were enough areas of concern within the results that shares fell 2 percent Tuesday morning. And J&J's detail-light promise to use its tax windfall to invest more in "innovation" is likely to frustrate as well.