thetrading.tools
ValuationFrom SEC cash-flow statements · 171 companies · quarterly, as of August 26, 2026

How Much of Their Cash Flow US Companies Are Reinvesting

Capital spending as a share of the cash the business generates, taken from each company’s own cash-flow statement. The aggregate is published with the largest spenders stripped out, because a sum over a population that has split in two describes neither half of it.

Capex intensitytrailing · filed only
Concentrated
41.4%
A record in aggregate; the median company sits at rank 57 of 63
All
41%
171 cos
Median co
19%
168 cos
Top 4
77%
of own CFO
Top 5 share
57%
of all capex

$989B of capital spending against $2387B of operating cash flow over the last four filed quarters. The four largest spenders today are AMZN, GOOGL, MSFT, META, ranked within this quarter rather than fixed in advance.

Latest read

Across 171 companies with a complete filed year, capital spending runs 41.4% of operating cash flow — rank 3 of 63 quarters since 2011. Strip the ten largest spenders and the same ratio is 21.0%, rank 59 of 63 — which is still a cash-flow-weighted sum of the rest rather than the typical company. The MEDIAN company spends 19.2% of its operating cash flow, rank 57 of 63, near the bottom of its own history. The five largest account for 57% of all capital spending in the basket. Total investment is at a record and the median constituent is investing less than it usually does.

Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-08-26 · Open ↓
Source
SEC EDGAR XBRL cash-flow statements for the covered companies — capital expenditure, cash from operations and depreciation as filed — joined to revenue from the same filings
Methodology
Trailing four filed quarters, with a company entering a window only when all four quarters are present; quarters dated by first filing, never by period end; the largest spenders ranked within each quarter rather than fixed, and the same ratios published with them removed
Updates
A quarterly series: the payload is rebuilt daily but each observation is a quarter end, so the latest reading advances only as a new quarter of filings completes. The page is dated by that observation rather than by the build.Last: 2026-08-26
Maintained & reviewed by Yuriy Matso — methodology shown on the page.
01

The aggregate, and what it conceals

Capital spending is at a record in total and mid-range for everyone outside the top ten

15.8%51.1%86.5%2012201420162018202020222024202641.4%21.0%19.2%77.3%
All 171 companiesExcluding the ten largest spendersThe median company, equal weightThe four largest spenders alone
Capital expenditure as a share of operating cash flow, trailing four filed quarters, 2011–present. At publication (August 26, 2026) the whole basket reads 41.4% — rank 3 of 63 — while the same measure without the ten largest spenders reads 21.0%, rank 59 of 63. The dashed line is the largest four measured against their own cash flow; it is high but not unprecedented, and the page does not claim otherwise.
02

Concentration

Range:
22.9%40.1%57.3%2012201420162018202020222024202657%
The five largest spenders now account for 57% of every dollar of capital spending in the basket, the highest of the series. This is the number that decides whether the aggregate can be read as a statement about corporate America at all. When it rises, the total is increasingly one small group's decision.
03

What it costs in free cash flow

Capital spending is the wedge between operating and free cash flow

7.1%10.7%14.2%2012201420162018202020222024202612.1%14.1%
All 165 companiesExcluding the ten largest spenders
Capital spending is the wedge between operating and free cash flow, so a rising capex share shows up here as a falling one. At publication free cash flow runs 12.1% of revenue. Read this against the first chart: the cash is not disappearing, it is being converted into assets.
04

Expansion or replacement

A rough reinvestment proxy: capital spending against everything being written off

0.7×1.1×1.5×201220142016201820202022202420261.5×1.0×
All 122 companiesExcluding the ten largest spenders
Read this as a reinvestment proxy rather than proof. The numerator is capital expenditure, which is mostly property, plant and equipment; the denominator is depreciation, depletion AND amortisation, which also carries intangible amortisation and accretion a company never spent capex on. The two do not cover the same assets, so a reading above 1.0 is suggestive of an expanding base rather than evidence of one. At publication the basket reads 1.52×, the highest of the series. The stripped basket reads 0.99×, which is expansion of a much more ordinary kind.
05

Who is actually building

The ten largest capital spenders in the basket over the last four filed quarters, with what each spends against its own operating cash flow and how much of the basket’s total capital spending it accounts for. Year-over-year compares each company against its own reading four quarters earlier, so a name new to the list shows a dash rather than a fabricated base.

AMZN$173B
Year over year+61%
Share of basket17.5%
Capex / own CFO107%
GOOGL$132B
Year over year+98%
Share of basket13.4%
Capex / own CFO71%
MSFT$116B
Year over year+80%
Share of basket11.7%
Capex / own CFO63%
META$89B
Year over year+71%
Share of basket9.0%
Capex / own CFO69%
ORCL$56B
Year over year+103%
Share of basket5.6%
Capex / own CFO174%
WMT$28B
Year over year+15%
Share of basket2.9%
Capex / own CFO69%
MU$25B
Year over year+90%
Share of basket2.6%
Capex / own CFO49%
CVX$18B
Year over year+14%
Share of basket1.9%
Capex / own CFO40%
DUK$15B
Year over year—
Share of basket1.5%
Capex / own CFO128%
SO$13B
Year over year—
Share of basket1.3%
Capex / own CFO135%
06

Method

Basket

The companies in our financials base whose capital expenditure and operating cash flow are both known for a complete filed year — 171 at the latest reading, against 102 at the start of the series. It is not the whole market, and because the basket is drawn from today’s universe, earlier quarters omit companies that have since failed or delisted. That flatters history in the usual direction and is why the count travels with every reading.

Windows

Trailing four filed quarters, each entering on the date it was first filed rather than the date it ended, so the timing carries no look-ahead. The values are latest-vintage, so a restated figure appears here as restated at its original filing date: a restated history dated by first disclosure rather than a point-in-time series. A company enters a window only when all four quarters carry both figures: quarterly coverage of the cash-flow statement runs about 86%, and allowing a hole would put an understated numerator over a complete denominator.

The stripped cuts

The largest spenders are ranked by capital expenditure inside each quarter, never fixed to today’s names. Freezing the list would encode the answer, since whoever leads in 2026 did not lead in 2013. Four, five and ten are all published so the finding can be checked against where the line is drawn.

Same basket as the P/E page

This page reads the payload that also serves Market P/E Ratio and Market Return Drivers, so the three cannot disagree about which companies they describe. The capex basket is a subset of it and carries its own count for that reason.

How Corporate Capex Intensity Works

  1. 1
    Take capex and cash flow from the filings
    Capital expenditure and cash from operations come from each company's own cash-flow statement as tagged in XBRL, summed across the basket over the trailing four reported quarters. Capex is filed as a negative outflow and carried positive here, so the ratio reads as the share of operating cash spent rather than inverting sign midway.
  2. 2
    Date every quarter by when it was first filed
    A quarter enters on the day it was first reported, never on the day it ended, so the timing carries no look-ahead. Values are latest-vintage, so a restated figure appears as restated at its original filing date rather than as first printed. A company also enters a trailing-year window only when all four of its quarters are present: at 86% quarterly coverage, allowing a hole would put an understated numerator over a complete denominator and quietly depress the ratio.
  3. 3
    Rank the largest spenders inside each quarter
    The top spenders are ranked by capex within each quarter rather than fixed to today's names. A hard-coded group would encode the answer: whoever leads in 2026 did not lead in 2013, and freezing the list would manufacture a trend out of the choice of list.
  4. 4
    Publish the aggregate and what it conceals
    The headline ratio is total capex over total operating cash flow. Beside it run the same ratio with the largest four, five and ten spenders removed, and for those spenders alone. Where the lines diverge is the finding: an average over a bimodal population describes neither half of it.

Who Uses Corporate Capex Intensity

Anyone trying to size the AI infrastructure build
The spending is usually reported from a handful of press releases and guidance updates. This measures it from cash-flow statements across the whole basket, so the question of how much is genuinely new investment and how much is concentrated in four balance sheets becomes a number rather than an impression.
Investors weighing free cash flow against growth
Capital spending is the wedge between operating cash flow and free cash flow. When capex intensity rises, free cash flow falls even as the business grows, and the page shows both sides of that trade on the same timeline.
Readers checking whether a headline generalises
Aggregate corporate statistics are routinely quoted as if they described the typical company. The stripped-out cuts here answer directly whether a record aggregate reflects broad behaviour or a small number of very large decisions.

Pro Tips

01
Read the median line against the aggregate
It is the rest of the basket, still cash-flow weighted, so it is not the typical company — the median line beside it is. If the aggregate is at a record while the stripped line sits mid-range, the story is concentration rather than a broad investment cycle.
02
Use capex against depreciation as the growth test
Above 1.0 the asset base is expanding faster than it is being written off; below 1.0 the company is not replacing what depreciation retires. It separates genuine expansion from maintenance more cleanly than the raw dollar figure.
03
The concentration share moves on its own
The share of all capex taken by the five largest spenders moves independently of the intensity ratio, and it is the number that says whether the aggregate can be read as a market-wide statement at all.

Common Issues & Solutions

The aggregate looks like a boom but the stripped lines do not▾
That is the intended reading rather than a fault. The aggregate is dominated by the largest spenders because it is a sum across companies rather than an average of them. Both are true at once: total investment is at a record, and the median large company is investing at an ordinary rate.
The basket is smaller than the market▾
It is the companies whose complete SEC filing histories we hold rather than the whole market, and the count is published with every reading. It is also built from today's universe, so earlier quarters omit companies that have since failed or delisted.
A company disappears from a quarter▾
A company enters a trailing-year window only when all four quarters carry both capex and operating cash flow. Missing filings drop the company from that window rather than being estimated, which is why the count moves between quarters.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is corporate capex intensity?▾
It is capital expenditure measured as a share of operating cash flow: how much of the cash a business generates it puts back into physical and productive assets. A rising ratio means more of each operating dollar is being reinvested rather than kept, returned to shareholders or used to pay down debt.
Are US companies spending more on capex?▾
In aggregate, yes, and by this measure the reading is the highest of the series. But the increase is heavily concentrated: strip out the ten largest spenders and capital intensity across the rest sits below the middle of its own history. Both statements come from the same filings and the page publishes them together.
Is this the AI capital spending number?▾
It captures it, but it is not limited to it. The measure covers all capital expenditure across the basket, so data centres sit alongside factories, stores, aircraft and refineries. The concentration cut is the closest thing here to isolating the AI build, because the companies driving it are also the largest spenders.
Why does capex against depreciation matter?▾
Depreciation is roughly what it costs to keep the existing asset base intact. Spending above that level is expansion; spending below it means the asset base is shrinking in economic terms even if revenue is growing. The ratio separates the two in a way that dollar totals cannot.
Does this cover the whole US market?▾
No. It covers the largest US companies whose complete filing histories we hold, and the company count is shown with every reading. Because the basket is drawn from today's universe, earlier quarters exclude firms that have since failed, which flatters history in the usual direction.

Explore Other Tools

Market P/E Ratio
What a dollar of trailing earnings costs, built from the same filings and the same basket.
Market Return Drivers
Revenue, margin or re-rating — where capital spending eventually shows up, or fails to.
Buyback & Dilution Tracker
The other use of the same cash: what share counts actually did.
Bubble Tracker
Valuation, allocation and leverage scored together against each past peak.
Last updated: 2026-08-27