Flush with trillions of dollars in cash, U.S. companies are on pace this year to pencil in another milestone: $1 trillion worth of corporate stock buybacks.
“The next few weeks will tell us a lot,” Chua said in a phone interview, of the continuing third-quarter earnings season. This Wells Fargo chart for the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.11% shows the value of buybacks outpacing dividends over the past 20 years, but also points to the near $1.4 billion record free cash flow of companies in the benchmark.
Share repurchases also have been criticized as a form of financial engineering that can artificially inflate stocks, particularly since U.S. corporations recently have become mega buyers of U.S. stocks.
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