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Just for the sake of argument, isn't the argument against buybacks that it may skew the indicators for how well the company is doing? You have earnings and then
by hnarn 7y ago
Just for the sake of argument, isn't the argument against buybacks that it may skew the indicators for how well the company is doing? You have earnings and then you have amount of shares: buy some shares from the public, and your "earnings per share" goes up even if the earnings haven't changed.
In my view, this is radically different from, for example, buying the whole public stock and going private.
- bradleyjg 7y agoIf that were so, then the accounting profession has failed at its core responsibility. But I don’t think it has, the information is there for investors to see. If some investors choose to obsessively focus on a single metric, well—-a fool and his money are soon parted.
- hnarn 7y agoI may be a bit daft here but in what way is this related to the work of accountants? The number isn't wrong, there's just context that's easily missed. The "buyer beware" logic can be used for a lot of things ad infinitum, you could argue the same thing about a company straight up lying about certain sales possibilities etc. but that would legally be fraud, so it's not black and white.
- bradleyjg 7y agoIt would be a failure if there was no way of telling from the financial statement what was going on.
- jsight 7y agoIt isn't accountants. It is all the financial advice and teaching that focuses on Price to Earnings as a meaningful way to measure valuations at the exclusion of a lot of other equally meaningful metrics.
- fmajid 7y agoAs long as companies are free to choose their accountants, there is an intrinsic conflict of interest. It gets even worse when the accountancies offer other professional services like IT consulting.