S&P's most recent update indicates that US companies, after a pause for about a year after the banking crisis, are back in the buyback game. In the third quarter of 2010, the S&P 500 companies bought back almost $ 80 billion of stock, up 128% from the third quarter of 2009. Note that this is part of a long term shift away from dividends towards buybacks in the United States, as is evidenced by the figure below which reports total dividends and buybacks at US companies starting in 1988:
Stock Buybacks: What is happening and why?
Stock Buybacks: What is happening and why?
Stock Buybacks: What is happening and why?
S&P's most recent update indicates that US companies, after a pause for about a year after the banking crisis, are back in the buyback game. In the third quarter of 2010, the S&P 500 companies bought back almost $ 80 billion of stock, up 128% from the third quarter of 2009. Note that this is part of a long term shift away from dividends towards buybacks in the United States, as is evidenced by the figure below which reports total dividends and buybacks at US companies starting in 1988: