Resources about stock buybacks

Stock buybacks, whether you like them or loathe them, are a reality and when companies are sitting on so much cash (like they are now – almost $1 trillion!), buybacks are certainly one option for companies looking to deploy their cash hordes.

Barron’s recently reviewed a few online resources to help investors stay on top of macro and company-specific trends.  You should read the whole article (sub. required).

Here are a couple of their ideas and some of my own thrown in to boot…

Stock buyback resources

• S&P Indices Market Attributes Series — I’m not exactly sure of what that means but this page posts proprietary S&P reports into buybacks.  Good overview on their reports (like this one (.pdf))
• The Online Investor: OLI does a good job of reporting all the buybacks in the market on a per-company basis.
• StreetInsider: Ongoing free feed of stock repurchases at numerous U.S. traded companies.
• Seeking Alpha transcript search: Seeking Alpha publishes thousands of free conference call transcripts.  Search for terms like “stock buybacks” or “share repurchases” and get a list of which companies are talking about them and what they’re saying.

Academic studies of share buybacks

• The Evolving Relation between Earnings, Dividends, and Stock Repurchases: Interesting look into how earnings are paid out in both dividends and repurchases.  Posits that stock repurchases have taken over dividends as way to pay out investors in a more conservative environment.
• Stock Repurchases as an Earnings Management Device: This study finds evidence that a disproportionately large number of firms have EPS increasing repurchases when they would have marginally missed analyst forecasts without the repurchase, and a disproportionately small number of firms have EPS decreasing repurchases when they are close to analyst forecasts before the repurchase.
• The Timing of Stock Repurchases: Contrary to mainstream thinking that repurchases are essentially timed by management to reveal insiders’ views on valuation, this study sees timing of stock buybacks as related to business cycles.
• Stock market anomalies: What can we learn from repurchases and insider trading?: This paper finds a connection between insider information (expectations about future performance) and timing of stock repurchases.

Premium Newsletters using Share Repurchase Strategies

• David Fried’s Buyback Letter

Funds using buyback strategies

• PowerShares Buyback Achievers Portfolio ETF (PKW)

Read the whole Barron’s article here (sub req’d).

—> Like what you see? Hey! Don’t forget to subscribe to the free Tradestreaming newsletter for updates, tips, and special offers.