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A Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) logo is seen on Bay Street in the heart of the financial district in Toronto, January 22, 2015.MARK BLINCH/Reuters

Investors hoping for an acceleration in revenue growth from large-cap U.S. companies in 2015 are likely to be disappointed.

A bottom-up approach – that is, adding up the consensus estimates for each stock in the S&P 500 – shows that total revenue is expected to contract by 0.2 per cent year-over-year in 2015.

This projection suggests we're set up for a year in which an equity rally would be fuelled either by share buybacks, earnings growth through cost-cutting measures, or multiple expansion. On the surface, it also points to an air of complacency in the market – investors couldn't be too worried about stagnant revenues with stocks close to all-time highs.

However, RBC Dominion Securities Inc. chief U.S. market strategist Jonathan Golub contends that looking at overall revenue growth "understates trend growth due to an outsized impact from oil and the dollar."

Excluding energy, he observes, revenues are expected to rise 3.8 per cent in 2015, with revenues for the index as a whole up 5.8 per cent in 2016.

"Energy and the dollar are weighing on 2015 revenue numbers … however, these impacts appear to reverse in 2016," he writes.

However, these assumptions – that oil prices will rebound and the U.S. dollar's rally will pause – are far from foregone conclusions.

Mr. Golub also believes that the bottom-up estimates for this year may be on the conservative side. Nominal GDP growth, which tends to move in tandem with S&P 500 revenue growth, is forecast to rise 4.6 per cent.

The second reading of fourth-quarter growth in the United States, due out on Friday morning, is expected to moderate to an annualized rate of 2 per cent. But according to Mr. Golub, forward-looking indicators like the ISM Manufacturing index point toward a pick-up in nominal GDP growth, and in turn, the revenue growth of S&P 500 companies.

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