Essentially corporate America is being looted and nobody complains cause stock prices are going up, damn!

Once buybacks stop, 401K accounts will crash with the markets. The government won't get those future tax dollars they were counting on.

There’s no question that stock buybacks provide a “bid” For exec Comp, but that’s not the driver in doing a share buy back.

It has a lot more to do with the other less safe options on how to deploy the excess earnings. A company could increase its dividend but that may be unsustainable and ultimate hurt the share price. It could declare special dividends, or it could use the cash profits to purchase other business. Studies have shown that almost 80% of corporate M&A ends up destroying shareholder value, i.e., the executives overpaid for the business. So not a lot of good choices...

In GE case, it should have contributed more to it’s defined benefit pension plan earlier on (if it even could under federal tax law). GE’s pension plan is now running the company vs the company running the plan.

But the bottom line is that tHe biggest decision point in deciding whether to do a stock buy back is not increasing the share price because of exec Comp. It’s done because it’s a much safer play for the money than trying to use it “internally” to add shareholder value given the poor track record of exec’s over paying for other businesses...

I know everything is corrupt, but say that it wasnt. I would propose the following rule for publicly owned companies.

You cannot vote on a share unless,

a) You are the individual who owns the share b) you are not on the board of the company c) you are not related to or know anyone on the board.

b) is important here as in order to run the company properly you must not have anyone with conflicted interests. If I am the chairman and own 51% of the company, I can pay myself in excess of what I am worth because I can vote on my own pay.

Now as long as shareholders get to decide on stock buybacks and executive remuneration, you would see buybacks diminish and gross out of control pay fall. It is only because the voting mechanism for stocks has been corrupted that things have gotten so far out of control.

Isn't it indicative of a system screwed up by excessively loose money?

1. buy was is limited in supply or can become (company stock) using something that is nearly limitless at low cost, easy credit.

2. low hurdle rates encourage risky behaviour that companies are aware of so they steer away from & buy their own stock instead.

3. the improving metrics for eps can be in excess of what a dividend receiver can achieve with a post tax dividend because rates are so low.

Yes - some management are gaming the system. Monetary policy encourages these outcomes too.

Solution - either ban buybacks or tax them.

Public markets will cease to operate when float reaches some lower bound. They either stagnate or go parabolic as index trackers still buy monthly as pension savings hit the fund.

Market cap weighted become interesting. Some company stock dries up, market cap can lose touch with any fundamental (upwards) and the stock move up the weighting - positive feedback loop.

Buybacks are just a symptom.

Hurdle rates matter if you want sustainable business and somewhere in this mess a low hurdle rate matters.

Start-ups that shouldnt happen, buybacks that are too easy, too easy M&A killing competition.

Periods like this will result in management that are less used to care with capital allocation and the consequences far reaching when the environment changes. Some will collapse. Some of the zombies are not small. The change could be rapid, deflationary and painful to funds, pensioners and wider society.

Ceo's gorging on all that freshly printed cash,look at that WeWork dude,Cash out a billion dollars on a company that's not worth 1/100 of it's valuation,and it's only gonna get much worse,the central banks have opened up the printing press levees flooding an already saturated market with freshly printed currency.

Mish, I think someone at CNBC is following you....

Goldman warns buybacks are ‘plummeting,’ ending a big source of buying power for the market PUBLISHED AN HOUR AGOUPDATED 8 MIN AGO

KEY POINTS Buyback spending is plummeting as companies spend less amid growing global uncertainty. According to Goldman Sachs, buyback spending slowed 18% to $161 billion during the second quarter, and the firm anticipates that the slowdown will continue. “During full-year 2019, we expect S&P 500 cash spending will decline by 6%, the sharpest annual decline since 2009,” the firm wrote. As corporate spending slows, investors hunting for yield should look to high-dividend stocks, the firm said.

Without buy-backs, the market is toast. Look at the relatively small number of companies that have had increases in their stock valuation as opposed to the majority that have lost in the last year. Between over-priced cash-eaters like Netflix and buy-back goosing by the market darlings, the fundamentals of the major components of the indexes are entirely gone.

How long until the charade is acknowledged to the extent sufficient to damage the speculation? How long can we dance on the edge?

Who's a bear now?

As I have said before, share buybacks are mathematically equivalent to one-time dividends. There is nothing inherently wrong with them, nor does it matter whether they happen at market peaks or market valleys. If a company buys back 1% of the shares, and an investor responds by selling 1% of their shares, after the transaction the shareholder has cash equal to his share of the buyback, and has the same proportional ownership of the company, exactly as if he had received a dividend. If he chooses not to sell any shares, after the buyback he doesn't have cash, but does have a higher proportional ownership of the company, exactly as he had received a dividend, but was in a DRIP program, and his dividend was reinvested in purchasing additional shares.

"Recall that Angelo Mozilo, former Countrywide Financial CEO cashed out over a billion in stock options while running the company into the ground."

This is the sort of thing that makes people like Bernie Sanders, popular.

Some great companies started from people with good values. Cadbury, Barclay, Lloyd, Carrs, Clarkes, Albright & Wilson and list goes on. Anti-slavery, pacifist and saw business as more than just a way to enrich themselves.

Society has lost it's way and the result is the economy we have. We are society.

Http://www.leveson.org.uk/stmarys/resources/cadbury0503.htm

Just folks exercising their God-given liberty.

"Since 2008, GE execs wasted more than $53 billion on stock buybacks.

In 2017, it paid its CEO, Jeff Immelt, a reported $211 million exit package.

Now, in debt, it's freezing pensions for 20,000 employees--while its share price reaches 25-year lows."

...

Immelt?

Oh yeah, ... Obama's jobs czar ...

"Recall that Angelo Mozilo, former Countrywide Financial CEO cashed out over a billion in stock options while running the company into the ground."

But what did he then do with all that money? He probably bought stocks in other companies which have a higher potential for profit, still benefitting the overall economy. Makes for a good reason to own index funds since they capture the flow of capital from less productive to more productive venues.

In a few years we will all be chanting "It's the debt, stupid!" 1974 brought the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, a piece of socialist legislation if ever there was one, essentially making the Fed responsible for the US economy! Impossible to eliminate the Fed, but we can reverse this act and the secular nosedive into negative real rates. Corporate loans at LIBOR of 1/2% to 2% are powerful incentives for management to stuff their pockets. Some buybacks use cash flow but the majority just lever up. What do we do now with these zombie companies?? Bail them out to "defend the economy". We sheep have been the culprits for a long time.