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I didn't read the article, but a quick scan showed no mention of "interest rate" or quantitative easing. I'd be wary of any discussion of buybacks that didn't

by aazaa 7y ago

I didn't read the article, but a quick scan showed no mention of "interest rate" or quantitative easing. I'd be wary of any discussion of buybacks that didn't mention that the price of money has been kept artificially low for a long time now.

wahern 7y ago
Sure, money is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that companies are borrowing money to fund buybacks. But that begs the questions--if you're not only using free cash for buybacks, but borrowing cash for buybacks, then what does that say about capital investment opportunities and the willingness of private investors to pursue them? Maybe there's just so much free cash that companies can keep investing normally while also doing buybacks. But few people would deny that America has a serious infrastructure problem, both in maintaining our existing infrastructure, and failing to meet demands for new infrastructure. So there are plenty of investment opportunities--to the extent public infrastructure could maintain and boost productivity--and nobody is disputing that these opportunities aren't being pursued. The question is, how do we direct that cash to fund those capital improvements? The old argument was that share buybacks returned money to shareholders, who are better capable, writ large, of discovering new investment opportunities. But they're not. All we're seeing are more buybacks and more cash accumulation. Investors aren't investing, they're just cashing out, which because there has been so much cash floating around[1] has become a persistent trend rather than cyclical. [1] IMO more because of global industrialization, not because of injection of dollars by the Fed. Reduced capital investment is a global trend. Because of the structural position of the U.S. in the global economy, much of that cash is funneled to the U.S., at least for the time being.
perl4ever 7y ago
How can you say it's artificially low without inflation? Relative to what? Interest rates are low historically in the US, but haven't they been conspicuously higher than in much of the developed world?

by aazaa 7y ago

wahern 7y ago

Sure, money is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that companies are borrowing money to fund buybacks. But that begs the questions--if you're not only using free cash for buybacks, but borrowing cash for buybacks, then what does that say about capital investment opportunities and the willingness of private investors to pursue them? Maybe there's just so much free cash that companies can keep investing normally while also doing buybacks. But few people would deny that America has a serious infrastructure problem, both in maintaining our existing infrastructure, and failing to meet demands for new infrastructure. So there are plenty of investment opportunities--to the extent public infrastructure could maintain and boost productivity--and nobody is disputing that these opportunities aren't being pursued. The question is, how do we direct that cash to fund those capital improvements? The old argument was that share buybacks returned money to shareholders, who are better capable, writ large, of discovering new investment opportunities. But they're not. All we're seeing are more buybacks and more cash accumulation. Investors aren't investing, they're just cashing out, which because there has been so much cash floating around[1] has become a persistent trend rather than cyclical. [1] IMO more because of global industrialization, not because of injection of dollars by the Fed. Reduced capital investment is a global trend. Because of the structural position of the U.S. in the global economy, much of that cash is funneled to the U.S., at least for the time being.

perl4ever 7y ago

How can you say it's artificially low without inflation? Relative to what? Interest rates are low historically in the US, but haven't they been conspicuously higher than in much of the developed world?