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IPFS News Link • Economy - Economics USA

"Day Of Reckoning" Nears As Goldman Projects A Record $650BN In Stock Buybacks

• https://www.zerohedge.com

When it comes to stock buybacks - an increasingly politically charged topic - 2018 has already been a historic year: as we reported last weekend the $171 billion in YTD stock buyback announcements is the most ever for this early in the year. In fact, it is already more than double the prior 10 year average of $77 billion in YTD buyback announcements.

And, according to Goldman's revised forecast of corporate cash use, the buyback tsunami is about to be truly unleashed this year.

In a note released on Friday, Goldman's chief equity strategist David Kostin revises his prior forecast for S&P 500 corporate cash spending, and now expects that in 2018 corporate cash outlays will grow by 15% to $2.5 trillion as a result of corporate tax reform and strong EPS growth, with $1.4 trillion (54% of the total) going toward growth while $1.2 trillion (46%) gets returned to shareholders.

While Goldman expects capex to grow by a modest 11% to $690BN, remaining the single largest use of cash, it will be so only by a fraction as buybacks will be breathing down CapEx' neck, and are set to increase by a whopping 23% from $527BN in 2017 to an all time high of $650BN, an amount which would make total 2018 buybacks the highest annual S&P500 stock repurchase on record.


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