US capital spending seen falling to 4-yr low in 2015

[NEW YORK] US corporate spending on capital projects could fall this year to the lowest level since 2011, with steep reductions by the energy industry and companies in other sectors cutting spending amid broad concerns about global growth.

Among the S&P sectors, only the materials and financials sectors expect to spend more in 2015 than they did last year, according to a Thomson Reuters analysis of spending outlooks from the 255 S&P 500 companies that have offered guidance on their capex for the year.

Analyst projections for all S&P 500 companies point in the same direction: a grim year for capital expenditures.

The numbers suggest that corporate bosses across many sectors are less confident in the economy than they had been in recent years. "They're not spending at a pace that would suggest a global recovery," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

That could translate to lower job growth and weakness in the technology and industrial companies that typically benefit from capital spending. "The new worry cropping up in the first-quarter earnings season is the concern of a more pervasive slowdown across industrial markets," RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a recent note.

Analyst estimates show total S&P 500 capex spending could dip 11 per cent to US$641.6 billion in 2015 from actual 2014 spending of US$718.1 billion, marking the lowest level since 2011's US$591.5 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.

That would break the recent trend of increasing S&P 500 capital spending every year since at least 2009, the data shows.

Companies themselves are projecting a similar decline from 2014 levels, with total spending from 255 S&P 500 companies projected at US$410.2 billion this year, down from actual spending by those same firms of US$459.2 billion last year.

As expected, S&P 500 energy companies account for the biggest fall in projected spending levels. As a group, their capex plans are down by US$21.4 billion, or 14.1 per cent from a year ago, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis. US oil prices are down more than 43 per cent from mid-June of last year.

There are a few bright spots, including International Paper , which expects to spend US$1.5 billion on capex this year compared with US$1.4 billion in 2014.

S&P 500 technology, industrial and consumer discretionaries also are showing sizeable declines in spending plans.

Chip maker Intel, which expects to spend US$8.7 billion in 2015, down from US$10.2 billion in 2014, said last month the dip reflected greater efficiency in manufacturing, more re-use of its existing production machinery and lower demand for PC chips. "I'd characterize this as being an unusually low level of capex, relative to the size of the business, because we are driving efficiency at a faster rate, and we are getting more re-use than we expected," Intel Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told analysts on a conference call.

REUTERS