Between 2003 and 2007, [Harvard professor William] Lazonick noted that the number of stock buybacks among companies in the S. & P. 500 quadrupled. Then, when the financial crisis began, some of these same banks required billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to avoid collapse. In September, 2008, just after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy (after…

Our research, based on publicly available information, strongly suggests that the dedication of Boeing’s senior executives to increasing their company’s profits and stock yield—which also augmented their own compensation—resulted in management decisions that contributed to the two 737 MAX crashes. While much more information remains to be discovered, the reported evidence, still unfolding almost daily,…

We note that the second sentence should begin with an “and,” not a “but.” The artificial inflation of stock prices via buybacks is by definition a short term boost and a trick that cannot be endlessly repeated. We have discussed this in detail many times and will continue to raise our concerns. Buybacks have gotten…

You know the rule: Buy low, sell high. Public companies, it seems, haven’t learned this basic investing lesson. They’re buying back more of their own shares than ever before: In 2018, on the heels of tax reform, the amount of buybacks surpassed $1 trillion in a year for the first time ever. While the amount…

Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday is rolling out his own plan to thwart stock buybacks, aligning with Democratic rivals who have recently condemned corporate stock repurchases as a source of the widening gap between average Americans and the wealthy. The Florida Republican and former presidential candidate, according to CNBC, would reduce the incentives for buybacks…

CII and the BRT joined forces to oppose the Schumer/Sanders proposal on stock buybacks. But that does not mean they have no concerns about the current rise in buybacks, with a record-setting $1 trillion last year. VEA Vice Chair addressed the CII board this morning and we expect to hear more from them on this…

VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow wrote about buybacks on the Harvard Law Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation:   We may not need a government solution to the issue of excessive corporate stock buybacks. We most certainly do not need the solution proposed by Senators Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders, requiring companies to adopt minimum…

VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow appeared on the Motley Fool Money podcast to talk about stock buybacks and Amazon. Amazon rebuffs the Big Apple. Coke fizzles while Pepsi sparkles. And NVIDIA stops the bleeding. Analysts Andy Cross, Ron Gross, and Jason Moser discuss those stories and talk Activision Blizzard, Shopify, Restaurant Brands International, and UnderArmour….