@rbreich the point of buybacks is to drive share price up which inflates the value of stock options for executives. The impact on share price is also usually transient, so they are essentially burning cash to give execs stock-based bonuses. This is in addition to cutting expenses by reducing maintenance & quality budgets, to increase earnings, which also drives up the share price. Buybacks do NOT return cash to shareholders, it's a smokescreen for hiding bonuses.
@rbreich
A dollar spent on buybacks is also a dollar less spent to fairly compensate the people who do the work that creates the value of the stock price.
@rbreich yes and they are by definition insider trading. When will the company buy its own stock? When the insider info it has shows it is most advantageous.