股票回购准备熊市

After retiring $2 trillion in the past five years, the record flow of stock buybacks faces new resistance. In fact, skeptical voices are being heard even from firms with maximum Wall Street credentials, such asBlackRockand Goldman Sachs. These firms have joined labor unions, think tanks, academics and candidates, both left and right, in questioning the economic efficacy of share buybacks in the current environment.

市场也对练习进行了打击。Volatile marketsin August gave further pause to boards mulling buybacks. Buybacks have even surfaced as an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, as top Democratic candidates have linked the practice to deepening income inequality and rising executive compensation.

最新的季度回购ROI记分卡，开发和计算的基准亚博赞助欧冠由Fortuna顾问使用Capital IQ数据，为此类预订提供了一些Grist。These quarterly scorecards treat share buybacks as if they were just another use of shareholders’ assets — like a merger or a capital investment — and then rank performance over two years at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies that retire more than 4 percent of their market capitalization or spend more than $1 billion on stock repurchases.

One clear trend: Companies that enjoyed robust returns on share repurchases in the bull market are suddenly seeing less bang for their buyback bucks. Median buyback return on investment (ROI) fell to 14.9 percent in the second quarter of 2015, down from 24.2 percent a year ago and 24.6 percent two years ago. An increasing number of buyback programs show losses.

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Each corporate buyback scorecard provides a window on buybacks over eight quarters. In case two years is not long enough to judge buyback ROI, earlier scorecards extend time frames. Combining the current scorecard with the ones published two years ago captures buyback ROI over a four-year span, from July 2011 through June 2015.

Buyback 记分卡标准普尔500指数为股票回购商Best & Worst Companies行业比较

Low buyback ROI over two years is often a cautionary flag, but it’s not a death sentence, particularly for companies that regain momentum. Case in point: Irvine, California–based medical equipment company Edwards Lifesciences Corp. earns a top grade this time for improvement. Two years ago it languished near the bottom of the ranking. Since then, it has climbed 255 places, to No. 7. Results warrant continued emphasis on buybacks, says Edwards CFO Scott Ullem, who adds that he “expects share repurchase to be the preferred method for returning capital to investors.”

然而，牛市永远不会举起所有船只。Pentair是一家位于曼彻斯特的工业公司，U.K.，下跌227个地方，到了当前记分卡的第262个。其他回购计划仍然在子达性能中留下。基于加利福尼亚的NetApp的桑尼维尔省了13个地方到263年。总部位于211的圣路易斯蒙西奥跌至219。

回购计划可以让股东失望速度令人痛苦的速度。去年11月，伦敦的时装和奢侈品供应商Michael Kors推出了新的回购。“我们很高兴能够发起股票回购计划，这反映了董事会和管理层对我们实现长期增长目标的能力的信心，并产生了强大的自由现金流，”Kors首席财务官Joseph Parsons宣布。

Eight months later Kors ROI was running at a negative 44 percent, the lowest buyback ROI of the 284 companies ranked. Parsons ignored that decline, saying, “This repurchase program underscores our commitment to returning value to shareholders, while maintaining the financial flexibility to strategically invest in our business.”

Gaps between median buyback ROI and underlying total shareholder return chiefly measure the consequence of good or bad timing. Buybacks in advance of rising prices (using average quarterly prices) generate positive buyback effectiveness as shares appreciate. Conversely, buybacks made ahead of price declines yield negative buyback effectiveness.

Inside information does not guarantee timely buybacks. In recent quarters buyback effectiveness has given ground steadily, falling to negative 3.7 percent in the latest scorecard. Two years ago, when the bull market produced buyback premiums, median effectiveness was 9.6 percent. One year ago buyback ROI matched underlying shareholder return almost exactly, meaning no premium or discount for timing decisions.

Poor timing particularly plagues cyclical industries like energy, automobiles and components. These companies often ramp up repurchases when shares are expensive and forgo them when shares are cheap. “Most companies time buybacks poorly around the up-and-down cycle,” says Fortuna CEO Greg Milano. Contrarians take note: “When trailing buyback ROI looks bad, it may signal a good time to buy back shares. If the cycle recovers, the buyback ROI could be quite attractive.”

Buybacks deliver mixed results in the latest Buyback Scorecard. Median buyback ROI over eight quarters through the second quarter of 2015 looked positive at 14.9 percent, a decent level. The trend, however, is less favorable. Declines have cut peak buyback ROI in half since the fourth quarter of 2013. In all, 142 companies lag below the median buyback ROI, and 56 buyback programs show losses.

Health care equipment and services delivered top performance across the 24 sectors through June 2015, nearly 33 percent in buyback ROI on $58 billion in buybacks. However, the sector’s two-year buyback ROI slipped by 3.7 percent. Five health care and equipment companies crowd the top ten. Louisville, Kentucky–based Humana, No. 1 in health care and services equipment and No. 2 overall in median buyback ROI, generated buyback ROI of 62.6 percent, ten basis points behind the leader, casual dining companyDarden Restaurants, based in Orlando, Florida. Humana will exit the quarterly ranking on a high note. In July it accepted a $37 billion bid from Hartford, Connecticut–based insurer Aetna, 13th in buyback ROI on the current scorecard.

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In second and third places, technology hardware and equipment posts 28 percent in buyback ROI; food and staples retailing comes in just below 28 percent.

Still, top performance in the current ranking can’t match earlier quarters. Three companies on previous Buyback Scorecards turned in more robust buyback ROI, led by 103.5 percent buyback ROI at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines. Eight of the top ten sectors lost ground in buyback ROI. Energy companies got hammered, as one might expect given steep declines in oil prices. However, three of the bottom five performers are consumer durables and apparel businesses.

Companies are accountable for decisions that erode shareholder value. Declining buyback ROI supports arguments that money for buybacks could be better used to serve stakeholders by reinvesting in the business or hiking wages. CEOs and CFOs typically brush off these charges as naïve or misinformed.

BlackRock and Goldman Sachs pose tough questions for corporate directors who often rubber-stamp buyback authorizations at the urging of activist investors. In April, BlackRock co-founder and CEOLaurence Fink urged companiesto curtail stock buybacks. Although they sometimes have a place, Fink said, he called buybacks a bad idea in the current economic climate, especially those that benefit a handful of short-term investors at the expense of long-term sustainability, a thinly veiled reference to Carl Icahn and other activists.

基于纽约的Blackrock，在数千家公司的管理和股份下有近5万亿美元，具有大规模的克劳堡。蔑视其期望的公司以令人强大的投资者的风险为此。Abrupt decisions to buy back shares with cash or debt “may be good for short-term strategy,” Fink told the audience at Institutional Investor and CNBC’s Delivering Alpha conference in July, “but it could be perilous for the long-term viability of the company. We will be hostile to things like that.”

Fink拒绝回购的理由是因为公司缺乏再投资的机会。他说，良好的领导和创新产生了机会。相反，如果公司选择在纪录的速度下退出股票，他认为更广泛的后果。除了削弱一些公司，Fink警告，回购“可能是我们有以下趋势经济的原因之一。我们没有尽可能多地投资未来。“

由David Kostin领导的高盛分析师团队在6月份得出类似的结论。Goldman自1999年以来的回购审查透露了金融危机的开始，当时公司部署了三分之一的现金来回购购回股票。结合在崇高的价格收入比率，并在这种气候邀请回购邀请令人失望的回报。“战术上，回购可能会在近期提升股价，”Goldman分析师报告说：“但在我们看来，当时市场的P / E倍数是如此之高的时候，这是一个可疑的现金使用。”

高盛的股票回购建议说no. Companies should buy other companies, not their own stock, when P/E multiples are so high, the firm advised, no doubt also aware that M&A generates more fees for Wall Street than buybacks.

Meanwhile, long-standing buyback critics have amped up their attacks, which grew after the September 2014Harvard Business Reviewarticle “Profits Without Prosperity” by University of Massachusetts professor William Lazonick (see “U.S. Buybacks Rebound but Face Sharp Criticism,”亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者,2015年1月）。这篇文章在主要媒体上获得了覆盖范围，刺激了“所有者拿走了所有”的头条新闻Washington Post。

The culprit in the buyback phenomenon is Rule 10b-18, Lazonick charges, which frees companies to repurchase shares with few restraints — even if consequences trigger higher executive compensation. When created in 1982 this so-called safe harbor unleashed a flood of buybacks that has grown significantly. Lazonick does not mince words. “In my view,” he charges, “Rule 10b-18 legalizes stock market manipulation.”

Citing potential stock manipulation, Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, told亚博赞助欧冠, “Congress and the SEC must take a serious look at stock buybacks.” In a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairMary Jo White，Baldwin要求将调查列表违反规则10B-18。怀特强调了审查价格操纵的秒行动的历史，但补充说它不会延伸到回购。“因为第10B-18条是一个自愿的安全港，发行人不能违反这一规则，”白色回答道。

更广泛的能见度使回购成为一个更大的目标，特别是在执行赔偿的背景下似乎加剧收入不平等。这些天在劳动力纠纷中存在问题。基于伊利诺伊州的快餐巨头麦当劳努力奥克布鲁克的转变计划，其中包括80亿美元的股票回购的特许经营者，他们想要支本不满。一般电气的工人看到不公正的时候当他们获得粉红色的滑动和工资时，当公司拨出数十亿美元来购买回股。

来自马萨诸塞州的民主党人的呼应者伊丽莎白沃伦·伊丽莎白沃伦（Sensator Elizabeth Warren）迫使SEC探讨了管辖可能破坏经济的回购的规则波士顿地球reported. She drew attention to layoffs at Cisco Systems while the San Jose, California, networking giant was spending billions of dollars on buybacks.

研究在线发表在2015年6月的专科学校emic-Industry Research Network, with backing from the Service Employees International Union, singled out buybacks in the fast-food industry as a bad idea on several levels. “We argue that the company’s recent ‘turnaround plan’ all but sacrifices the interests of both its workers and its franchisees, notwithstanding an historical commitment to them as stakeholders in the McDonald’s ‘system,’ to the interests of speculative shareholders,” authors Lazonick, Matt Hopkins and Ken Jacobson wrote.

Other voices on the left concur. “Finance used to be about putting money into firms. Now it’s about getting money out of firms, where buybacks are one of the most important tools,” says fellow Mike Konczal at the New York–based progressive think tank the Roosevelt Institute. Buybacks reveal lasting damage to the economy, adds Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, an arm of the Brookings Institution. Managers lack confidence in demand that would warrant investment in property, plant, equipment and skilled workers to operate them. So they buy back shares. “It’s another sign of dysfunction,” Bivens says.

Democratic candidates have responded to the antibuyback sentiment. “Last year the [buyback] total reached a record $900 billion,” Hillary Clinton told an audience at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “That doesn’t leave much money to build a new factory, or a research lab, or to train workers or to give them a raise.” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination, has echoed similar concerns.

Surging buybacks also spur questions in conservative circles. “It’s not a problem but rather the symptom of a problem,” says Mark Calabria, director of financial regulation studies at the libertarian Washington-based Cato Institute. As he sees it, buybacks expose flawed judgments by the美国联邦储备。“他们对我们目前的货币政策的合理反应，使得债务看起来比股权便宜如此便宜，”卡拉布里亚说。在风险调整的基础上，低利率倾向于扼杀再投资的案例，敦促公司回购其股票。

Buybacks also shine a light on questionable judgment in C-suites, adds Alex Pollock, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. Even armed with inside information, managers seldom demonstrate an edge over anyone else when judging shares as cheap or expensive. A case in point is the stock buybacks preceding the financial crisis. “They were taking capital out just when they needed it,” says Pollock.

小心控制份额的意想不到的后果buybacks, warns assistant professor of finance Alice Bonaimé at the University of Arizona. “Disassociating executive compensation from performance measures affected by buybacks, such as earnings per share, sounds like an easy solution,” says Bonaimé, whose paper on mandatory buyback disclosure and firm behavior will be published in theAccounting Review。Steps that disconnect executive pay from buybacks might reduce stock manipulation. But if they weaken alignment with managers, investors might pay a much bigger price.