I personally think there are many reasons to be super careful and expect significant glitches in the economy, stock and especially bond markets, etc. in the nex

I personally think there are many reasons to be super careful and expect significant glitches in the economy, stock and especially bond markets, etc. in the next few years. We (US) have been on the up leg of the cycle for very long and a lot of people are used to great paper returns and a feeling of wealth that comes with it. They are also not ready for a change and few entertain "what if" scenarios -- kind of like 2006 when professionals were stretching to buy expensive houses on 2 salaries and would argue "no problem -- if one of us loses a job we will sell the house. price dropping 20%? never going to happen". That said, I also do not see "reward shareholders" as necessarily sinister. Many companies this late in the cycle are sitting on a LOT of cash (income from operations) and do not see enough opportunities to invest in long term growth. Thus they are using it to pay dividends or buy their own stock. In fact, "reward shareholders" is exactly what the company should be doing in such case and neither of this is a sign of the problem. Problems may still happen, but I doubt about buybacks being the primary cause. My 2c.