I   confess that I might not have noticed the stir caused by Warren Buffett’s remarks in the 2005 Berkshire-Hathaway annual report in which he attacked buyback-option schemes if it were not for an unusual event. That ‘event’ was a reporter from USA Today calling me to ask my opinion on what Mr. Buffet had said. […]

On June 12, 2020, the Wall Street Journal lead front page headline was, “Big Companies Put Record Sums Into Buybacks — Repurchases Aim to Bolster Shares but Come at Expense Of Investments in Growth“. For capital flow analysts, this is hardly news, but for the Wall Street Journal to at long last acknowledge the real purpose […]

Disbursement of corporate cash through dividends and stock buybacks totaled $1,073.5 billion in Q1 2006 (annualized quarterly data), compared to net corporate profits after tax of only $509.5 (also, annualized quarterly data), according to the Federal Reserve flow of funds accounts for Nonfarm Nonfinancial Corporate Business. This massive distribution of corporate cash that exceeded net profits […]