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On one side of Wall Street they've been labelled a drug and just another way of pumping up a stock price when a company knows its earnings are going to be weak.
But on the other side is Warren Buffett, and he thinks there's nothing wrong with them.
Buybacks have been one of the key supports for the multi-year rally on US stock markets, with the decline in the number of shares on issue helping drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average and benchmark S&P 500 to their record highs.
Despite the overall lacklustre earnings growth since the GFC, many US companies are still generating decent cash flows.
These cash flows, rising cash balances and solid investment grade credit ratings have fuelled a surge in buyback activity to record highs, with many companies still retaining enough cash to fund capital expenditure on growth projects.
Indeed, corporate America has spent more than $US2 trillion ($2.6 trillion) on buybacks from 2010 to 2015, according to HSBC.
It all hit a high point in the middle of 2015 after the Federal Reserve cut back back on its quantitative easing program and companies had to come up with another plan to get their share price higher.
In those days companies were giving back more money than they earned and investors got addicted to the whole practice.
It led to some saying it was just another drug replacing QE, that was also called the drug of choice for all asset classes.
One vocal critic of the whole buyback strategy is Larry Fink, chief executive of the asset manager BlackRock, who believes it holds back growth and investment.
Time for a deep breath
But in his latest annual letter, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway said when it comes to buybacks everyone needs to "take a deep breath" and added that he can't remember any decent investment project getting knocked back if it really needed the money.
And therein lies the problem.
If there really is nothing better to do with the cash then why not give back to shareholders?
In Australia some companies will soon be forced to make a decision about capital management.
According to CommSec's Craig James, it's been 14 earnings seasons since local companies have had this much cash around them.
On his numbers there's almost $108 billion burning a hole in their pocket.
Well regarded private investor Peter Morgan isn't gainst buybacks but points out that too often they tend to occur at the wrong time in a company's cycle.
Australia is "chock full of cyclical companies" and he reckons buybacks always get trotted out "near the top of the cycle and never at the bottom".
"Take the miners, for example, they should've been buying at the recent bottom of a cycle not three years earlier at the top. Obviously other things like lack of franking credits can play a part but a correct reading of, or common sense reading of, the cycle is important," he says.
Buffett's Berkshire has a buyback policy of its own although he hasn't had to use it for several years.
Not a complicated issue
But if the share price takes a tumble and gets to 120 per cent below its stated book value, he will get his chequebook out and start buying.
The whole issue is "not that complicated", Mr Buffett said; buying back shares is the right thing to do when the market is valuing them at less than the intrinsic value of the company, and when there is nothing else better to invest in.
As Andrew Harding, the CEO of Aurizon, said this season "what you're after is to add the most value to shareholders … we are not chasing diversification for diversification's sake…"
QBE announced on Monday an on-market share buyback of up to $1 billion over three years as a means to return surplus cash to investors.
This season Rio Tinto recorded an annual profit of $US5.1 billion, paid a better than expected dividend, and will also conduct a $US500 million buy-back but only in Britain.
All up, close to $2.5 billion of buybacks have been announced this season according to the Coppo Report.
Companies that have announced buybacks during the current reporting period included AMP for $500 million, Coca-Cola for $350 million, Bluescope, Seven Group, Charter Hall Retail, GPT Group and Sirtex.
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