Capex Spending on AI Continues to Be a Significant Tailwind to the Economic Outlook

Apollo Chief Economist

The economics textbook says that higher interest rates should slow capex spending.

But capex spending is currently much less sensitive to interest rates because of massive investments in AI.

Despite the Fed funds rate being at the highest level in decades, capex spending by the Magnificent Seven is at record-high levels, see chart below.

This is another reason why the monetary policy transmission mechanism is much weaker than usual. Fed hikes are having a much smaller negative impact than normal on business investment decisions because of the strong appetite among firms to invest in AI.

Capex spending of the Magnificent Seven
Source: Bloomberg, Apollo Chief Economist

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