PROPPING UP A MARKET

Buy back binge might be an understatement. 

Putting a huge prop underneath the market might be closer to the truth. Here's a blurb from http://www.crossingwallstreet.com

More stats on the amazing trend of share buybacks:

Five years of profit growth have left S&P 500 constituents with $3.59 trillion in cash and marketable securities and they’ve raised almost $1.28 trillion in 2014 through bond sales, headed for a record.

(…)

S&P 500 companies will spend $565 billion on repurchases this year and raise dividends by 12 percent to $349 billion, based on estimates by Howard Silverblatt, an index analyst at S&P. Profits would reach $964 billion should the 8 percent growth forecast by analysts tracked by Bloomberg come true.
Profits climbed to about $230 billion over the last three months, based on analyst forecasts. That compares with total buybacks and dividends of about $235 billion, assuming repurchases estimated by Silverblatt are evenly divided between the third and fourth quarters. Cash returned to shareholders exceeded profits in the first quarter for the first time since 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg and S&P show.

(…)

The reluctance to raise capital investment has left companies with the oldest plants and equipment in almost 60 years. The average age of fixed assets reached 22 years in 2013, the highest level since 1956, according to annual data compiled by the Commerce Department.

 Here's some random buyback quotes from various sources and times of this year. The two charts are from the 9/22/14 WSJ article,"Companies' Stock Buybacks Help Buoy the Market."

In total, US companies have announced USD309bn worth of share repurchases year-to-date, up from USD259bn for the same period a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Cisco: Back in February, Cisco announced an $8 billion bond issue “to help finance stock buybacks after the shares lost almost 6 percent over six months.”

Corporations bought back $338.3 billion of stock in the first half of the year, the most for any six-month period since 2007, according to research firm Birinyi Associates. Through August, 740 firms have authorized repurchase programs, the most since 2008.

 The lesson here should be clear. Corporations have their own way of printing money