Moments ago Bed, Bath and Beyond was the latest company to disappoint Wall Street (not for long: Barclays' aggressive "pernicious fraud" BTFD HFT algos will promptly fix this) when it reported Q1 revenues of $2.66 billion, below the $2.69 billion expected, and EPS of $0.93, also below the $0.95 expected. Worse, it guided Q2 below consensus, seeing a range of $1.08-$1.16.
None of this mattered to us. What mattered was the amount of cash BBBY spent on CapEx and Buybacks: after all we keep hearing so much about this CapEx renaissance that will push Q2 GDP to a 4%+ print from its miserable -2.9% in Q1. Alas, the next definition of US GDP will need to include a line item for "stock buybacks" too because one look at the long-term chart below showing BBBY capital spending and share repurchases since 2007 pretty much says it all.
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One can almost smell the CapEx renaissance.... Any minute now.
