I Am Shocked — Shocked — to Find That Gambling Is Going on in Here!

Your winnings, sir

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has looked at stock buybacks, and has discovered to its chagrin that it looks a lot like stock manipulation:

A study by the SEC of 385 recent share-buyback announcements — this is when companies announce how much money they will spend in the future on buying back their own shares, but before they actually begin buying them — found:

• Share-buyback announcements led to “abnormal returns” in the share price over the next 30 days.
• Executives used this share price surge to cash out.

“In fact, twice as many companies have insiders selling in the eight days after a buyback announcement as sell on an ordinary day. So right after the company tells the market that the stock is cheap, executives overwhelmingly decide to sell,” explained SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson Jr. – appointed by President Trump and sworn in earlier this year – in a speech today. He went on:

And, in the process, executives take a lot of cash off the table. On average, in the days before a buyback announcement, executives trade in relatively small amounts—less than $100,000 worth. But during the eight days following a buyback announcement, executives on average sell more than $500,000 worth of stock each day—a fivefold increase. Thus, executives personally capture the benefit of the short-term stock-price pop created by the buyback announcement:

“This trading is not necessarily illegal,” he added. “But it is troubling, because it is yet another piece of evidence that executives are spending more time on short-term stock trading than long-term value creation.”

Gee, you think?

Stock buybacks used to be banned, they were considered illegal stock manipulation, but Ronald Reagan rescinded that rule, and the ensuing orgy of looting was the inevitable result.

God bless America.