Are Record Stock Buybacks Putting in a Stock Market Floor?

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the S&P 500 Index fighting to stay in positive territory in 2015, and to keep the bull market streak going into a seventh straight year, it is important to consider what is driving the cart here. Investors love big dividends and share buybacks, but new data indicates that the stock market’s performance in 2015 is being bolstered or supported by the largest S&P 500 companies buying back their own stock.

Stock buybacks are one of the top methods that companies can use to return capital to shareholders. Then there is a flip side — that stock buybacks can manipulate the valuation and earnings metrics, or that they can juice a stock’s performance.

24/7 Wall St. has seen some research from Standard & Poor’s on record stock buyback activity continuing in 2015. It sure seems as though Corporate America may be bolstering their own stocks by acquiring more and more of their own shares. Yes, this may bolster earnings per share and other per-share valuation metrics. It could also be skewing the performance.

The total shareholder return for dividends and buybacks over the 12 months ending in September was at a record $934.8 billion. Technology/IT companies accounted for over 28% of all buybacks in that third-quarter analysis. The consumer staples and consumer discretionary sectors posted increases of 27.7% and 20.9%, respectively. The financial sector accounted for 17.1% of the buybacks, up 21.0%. Energy maintained its low level, slightly increasing 0.9% for the quarter

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), now a DJIA stock, was the leader, with over $13 billion used in the quarter (up 32.5% sequentially). Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) continues to be aggressive in buying back stock, acquiring $4.8 billion in the third calendar quarter and $4.3 billion in shares in the second calendar quarter.
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Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) may have Star Wars to thank for its gains, but the company bought back more stock than might have been planned when that third-quarter weakness took Disney shares too low. Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) has also been a top buyer of its shares by spending almost $3.3 billion, making that 10-times earnings valuation look cheaper and cheaper.

Even American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) spent $3.73 billion in the third quarter buying back stock, for a total of $8.972 billion in total spent for the trailing 12 months.

It turns out that in the third quarter of 2015, just the S&P 500 Index members had $150.6 billion in stock buybacks, up 14.5% from the second quarter and up 3.7% from the third quarter in 2013.

Now let’s think about it on an annual basis, or the trailing 12 months. If you take the 12 months ending in September, the total buybacks from S&P 500 Index companies was up 1.6% from the prior at almost $559 billion.

What also stands out here, and the reason why we are concerned about them juicing their returns and valuation metrics, is that over 20% of the S&P 500 companies shrank their total share count (float) by 4% or more from a year earlier.

By acquiring more stock at lower levels, these companies are reducing their outstanding number of shares. About one of seven companies in the S&P 500 are leading the way — and this is at a time when capital spending in the energy companies and low oil prices are preventing that sector from engaging actively in share buybacks.
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Now let’s consider how there has been no massive pullback for four years. When we run our daily analyst upgrades and downgrades, we point out how there really has not been a formal 10% pullback in the Dow and S&P 500 for about four years. This means that companies being so aggressive in buying during the third quarter kept things from getting out of hand in August and September.

It seems as though companies are bolstering their earnings per share by shrinking their total number of shares outstanding.

Issues reducing their share count this quarter were basically flat, with 306 doing so. That is down from 307 in the second quarter, but up substantially from the 257 in the third quarter of 2014. In the third quarter, the top 20 companies in the S&P 500 Index accounted for a whopping 38.78% of all S&P 500 buybacks.