It's the latest sign of a bullish market and Corporate America’s confidence in the economy
At a time when inflation remains elevated and investors are hoping for interest rates cuts this year, companies are increasingly boosting their share prices by buying them back. Deutsche Bank says stock buybacks have reached $262 billion this earnings season, Yahoo Finance reports, a sign of Corporate America’s confidence in the economy.
Companies have repurchased more than $383 billion in shares over the past 13 weeks, according to Deutsche Bank research reported by Yahoo. This marks a 30% increase from the same period last year and is the highest level since June 2018.
Stock buybacks are a process by which a company repurchases its outstanding shares to reduce the number of them on the market, increasing the value of remaining shares. Stock buybacks are generally seen as a way to boost share prices.
This year, dominant companies such as Apple $AAPL, Google $GOOGL parent Alphabet, and Novo Nordisk announced they would be buying back their stocks during this earnings season. Apple, for instance, recently approved its biggest-ever $110 billion stock buyback, which excited investors enough that they overlooked its weak iPhone sales. Since 2012, Apple has spent $650 billion on stock repurchases, the most of any tech company.
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