Yeah, They Are Worrying about the "Costs"

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a regulation increasing transparency about stock buybacks, and the executives are already complaining that being open about their looting stock buybacks will be excessively onerous and expensive.

To paraphrase Mandy Rice Davies, "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?"  They just want to make sure they get their stock options vigorish:

Finance executives are bracing for higher costs and unintended consequences from new federal disclosure requirements on share repurchases, the latest in a series of moves by lawmakers and regulators to curb the popularity of stock buybacks.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday approved a rule requiring most companies to provide daily buyback amounts at the end of each quarter, rather than the monthly amounts that they have to supply now. In addition, companies will have to check a box if their officers and directors purchased or sold shares within four business days of announcing a buyback program.

Also under the rule, which is set to go into effect in October, companies have to explain rationales for buybacks and share with investors any policies they have to limit insider transactions during such a program. Currently, U.S. public companies are required to present in their quarterly reports the number of shares they repurchased, the amount of money spent on buybacks and the average share price.

The rule change comes months after a new 1% excise tax on share repurchases went into effect, a levy that President Biden in February proposed quadrupling. A group of Senate Democrats later that month followed up with a bill similarly seeking to increase the tax on certain buybacks to 4%, a proposal that faces hurdles to passage in the divided Congress.

Here's an idea, how about repealing SEC Rule 10b-18, adopted in 1982, which legalized stock buybacks. (Provided a "Safe Harbor")

Before that, it was presumed that stock buybacks were a form stock manipulation, so a company would have to justify such actions to regulators.

The rule was barring most buybacks created by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., the first head of the SEC, and one of the most successful stock sharps in history.  (Roosevelt brought him in because Kennedy knew all the tricks, and so was well equipped to shut said tricks down.)

Stock buybacks are a form of stock fraud, and they should be shut down.