This year through June 5, 7,561 M&A deals were announced, the lowest count since 2013, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
While M&A volume reached a record $2.055 trillion 2013, the volume has slipped in 2016 to just $1.7 trillion.
As RealInvestmentAdvice.com's Lance Roberts notes, given the length and maturity of the current economic expansion, tighter monetary policy in the U.S. and a lack of legislative agenda moving forward in Washington, there is further risk of M&A support being pulled from the markets.
And Tobias Levkovich, the chief US equity strategist at Citi, appears to agree that there is potential problems ahead...
"In some respects, one of the scariest charts to look at currently is the number of announced mergers & acquisition deals over the past year or two,"
"M&A lawyers argue the 'uncertainty' factor, which has come about recently, given some unpredictable aspects of the new Trump administration, has been the issue. It only may explain the last six months, but the trend has been poor for about two years or more.
In the past, there has been some correlation with the S&P 500 and thus it could generate more legitimate fears than some of the other excuses that are put forth for not wanting to buy American equities."
Despite surging CEO confidence, it appears their money is not being put where their mouth is in terms of betting on the long-term future (that stocks are clearly trying to price in from some utopia).