What are the implications of a corporate stock repurchase or share buyback program?
Ignoring taxes, a share repurchase has exactly the same effect on the company and the shareholders' wealth as a cash dividend. In either case, the company is disbursing cash to its shareholders; in the former, in exchange for shares which shareholders happen to be selling on the market at the time; in the latter, equally to all shareholders. For those shareholders who do not happen to be selling their shares, a share repurchase by a company is equivalent to a shareholder's reinvestment of a cash dividend in additional shares of the same company.  The only difference is the total number of shares left outstanding.  Your shares after a share buyback represent ownership of a greater fraction of the company, since in effect the company is buying out other shareholders on your behalf. Theoretically, a share buyback leaves the price of the stock unchanged, whereas a cash dividend tends to reduce the price of the stock by exactly the amount of the dividend, (notwithstanding underlying earnings.)  This is because a share buyback concentrates your ownership in the company, but at the same time, the company as a whole is devalued by the exact amount of cash disbursed to buy back shares. Taxwise, a share buyback generally allows you to treat your share of the company's profits as capital gains---and quite possibly defer taxes on it as long as you own the stock.  You usually have to pay taxes on dividends at the time they are paid.  However, dividends are sometimes seen as instilling discipline in management, because it's a very public and obvious sign of distress for a company to cut its dividend, whereas a share repurchase plan can often be quietly withdrawn without drawing that much attention. A third alternative to a dividend or a share repurchase is for the company to find profitable projects to reinvest its earnings in, and attempt to grow the company as a whole (in the hopes of even greater earnings in the future) rather than distribute current earnings back to shareholders.  (A company may alse use its earnings to pay down or repurchase debt, as well.) As to your second question, the SEC has certain rules that regulate the timing and price of share repurchases on the open market. A board authorizes the repurchase of shares because they feel the stock in undervalued. The hope is that the stocks will rise either directly by their repurchase, or in the near term due to the realization that the company is in better shape then the market thought. Eventually those shares will be resold back into the market thus bring in more cash at a later date.  They will set limits on them maximum they will pay, they will also spread the repurchases out over a time period so they don't overwhelm the market. The future shares will be fewer in number, yet have claim to less cash in the bank. All in all, there's little reason the shares would rise in value.  Say there are 1M shares, trading at $10. Market cap is $10M of course. Now, there happens to be $2M cash in the bank so each share had about $2 cash. By taking the $2M and buying 200K shares, 800K shares remain, but why would you think they'd be valued at $12.50? The same $10 value per share is now an $8M market cap as $2M has been disbursed, no less so than if it were given out in a dividend. the implications are that the company's earnings per share may seem greater, (after the company buys them there will be less shares outstanding), giving wall street the impression that there is more growth potential than there really is. its an accounting gimmick that can work for a few quarters while the company evaluates how else to impress wall street A stock buy back reduces the number of stocks available on the open market.  Since stocks are literally a share in ownership a buy back of the stock then when the company repurchases it has the effect of increasing the percent of ownership of the company of each stock. Zynga has a Market Cap of ~1810M so a 200M buy back will increase the ownership value of each stock by ~12%.  This has had the effect of an immediate stock price bump of around 12% which is to be expected as the value becomes the expected post buyback value. However long term gains will require Zynga to turn around their business.  This bump will only be sustainable if they can.  If their business continues to decline then its stock price will continue to slide.  There are some who would rather see Zynga invest that 200m in getting a new product to market to bring revenues up rather than spending precious capital on a plan to temporarily bump a stock that is headed towards the floor.  If on the other hand the revenue is poised to recover and the company has the excess capitol buying back stock low is a great way to get the most back for your shareholders bucks. Can they repurchase at any price and any time? They can write a buy order for any price at any time in the future, though they have some restrictions from the SEC mostly involving disclosures.  But it is up to the sellers to choose to sell at that price.  If they execute the buy back at a rate comparable to market rate then they are more likely to get takers than if they attempt to buy it back at a significant reduction from market price.  So since today(10-25-2012) the it is selling for ~2.30  A buy order for 2.30 is going to get more action than one at 2.00.  Investors will often look at the companies buy back offer for a company in decline(like Zynga has been) as the true value of the company.  If so then a lowball buyback offer could add downward pressure on the stock price.
"It depends on how the program is run. If the company runs the program out of treasury stock (shares that are authorized, but not issued), then there aren't any shares being purchased on the open market.   Because of that, the share price wouldn't be affected.    If you look in your employer's annual report, you will probably find how the program is run and how many shares are issued annually under that program. By comparing that to the daily trading volume of the company's stock you can gauge whether there's any likelihood of the share price being affected by the employee purchases. That is, of course, if shares are being purchased on the open market.  For example, here is Books-A-Million's program, as described in their 2011 annual report: Employee Stock Purchase Plan   The Company maintains an employee stock purchase plan under which shares of the Company’s common stock are reserved   for purchase by employees at 85% of the fair market value of the common stock at the lower of the market value for the   Company’s stock as of the beginning of the fiscal year or the end of the fiscal year. On May 20, 2010, the stockholders of the   Company approved an additional 200,000 shares available for issuance under the plan, bringing the aggregate number of   shares that may be awarded to 600,000. Of the total reserved shares, 391,987, 373,432 and 289,031 shares have been   purchased as of January 29, 2011, January 30, 2010 and January 31, 2009, respectively. This describes an instance of the employee purchase program being run from unissued stock, not open market purchases. From it, we can tell 18,555 shares were issued during the past fiscal year.  As their average daily volume is ~40,000 shares, if the program were run from a single open market purchase, it would have potential to ""move the market"".  One would think, though, that a company running it from open market purchases would spread the purchases over a period of time to avoid running up the price on themselves." Yes. As long as the stock is in a taxable account (i.e. not a tax deferred retirement account) you'll pay gain on the profit regardless of subsequent purchases.  If the sale is a loss, however, you'll risk delaying the claim for the loss if you repurchase identical shares within 30 days of that sale. This is called a wash sale. "Definitely not what I'm saying, I'm saying that instead of some of these companies spending 70% of their earnings on stock buybacks they should reinvest that money into their employees and pay out larger dividends to shareholders. I understand share repurchases are fine when not done in excess, but right now it's in excess to manipulate EPS and hit targets. You're missing the point, I'm not talking about the  ""NPV of a random project"".   Edit: this article I just found explains perfectly what I'm talking about: https://amp.businessinsider.com/whats-a-buyback-and-why-do-some-investors-hate-them-2016-6" 449 of the 500 companies in the S&amp;P 500 used 54% of their earnings to buy back shares for over $2 trillion.   Rather than invest in development, capital, human capital, bigger dividends, they're repurchasing shares to boost their EPS and increase share value in the short term. Why is this an issue? Because it shows that these companies are uneasy about the long term. It stunts growth. Doesn't have to be research, simply expansion or rewarding employees/shareholders. Employees of the company receive no benefits and bagholders may make a quick buck short term, but suffer long. Execs of the company however get fat AF checks for hitting target ratios and price. Stock buybacks enable this. "I think JB King's answer is interesting from the point of view of ""is this good for me"" but the OP's question boils down to ""why would a company do this?"" The company buys back shares when it thinks it will better position the company financially. A Simple Scenario: If Company A wants to open a new store, for example, they need to buy the land, build the store, stock it, etc, etc and this all costs money.  The company can get a loan, use accrued capital, or raise new capital by issuing new stock.  Each method has benefits and drawbacks. One of the drawbacks of issuing new stock is that it dilutes the existing stock's value.  Previously, total company profits were split between x shares.  Now the profits are shared between x+y shares, where y is the number of new shares issued to raise the capital. This normally drives the price of the stock down, since the expected future dividends per stock have decreased. Now the company has a problem: the next time they go to raise money by issuing stock, they will have to issue MORE shares to get the same value - leading to more dilution.  To break out of this cycle, the company can buy back shares periodically.  When the company feels the the stock is sufficiently undervalued, it buys some back.  Now the profits are shared with a smaller pool, and the stock price goes up, and the next time Company A needs to raise capital, it can issue stock. So it probably has little to do with rewarding shareholders, and more to do with lowering the ""cost of capital"" for the company in the future." "Buying shares back is an indication that the company has nothing better to do with their money.  True.  However, buying the shares back is essentially moving money around, the firms (or individuals) they buy from, will invest their money differently.  Mergers and acquisitions are productive though.  The idea is that you combine things to work more efficiently.  For example, a small startup might have a great product but not a lot of infrastructure or cash.  So the big guys with both buy em up.  Or, big companies might have redundant expenditures in infrastructure or employees, and by merging they can produce more efficiently.  The term you keep using ""real economy"" is a strange one.  The above parties are part of the real economy.  Really.  What, may I ask, is your education in economics?  What books have you read on the subject, classes taken, jobs worked, podcasts listened to, etcetera, that are giving you these ideas?" "Thanks for your reply. I think a lot of people are confused when talking about ownership, and I think it is a definitional issue.   When a company issues stock (the first time or anytime), what they are doing is ""selling"" the right to a percentage of the dividend. They are not actually selling parts of the company to you. Everyone thinks this way though, and that has to do with the Chicago School economists who perpetuated their ideas of ownership which is what everyone know thinks is the case. This way of thinking about corporations and ownership is just wrong (not ethically), just erroneous.   As I stated before, Lynn Stout of Cornell University explains this really well. I would encourage anyone to read more about it." A Breakdown of Stock Buy Backs has this bottom line on it: Are share buybacks good or bad? As is so often the case in finance, the question may not have a definitive answer. If a stock is undervalued and a buyback truly represents the best possible investment for a company, the buyback - and its effects - can be viewed as a positive sign for shareholders. Watch out, however, if a company is merely using buybacks to prop up ratios, provide short-term relief to an ailing stock price or to get out from under excessive dilution. Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp#ixzz3ZHdOf2dJ What is the reason that a company like AAPL is buying back its own   shares?  Offsetting dilution would be my main thought here as many employees may exercise options putting more stock out there that the company buys back stock to balance things. Does it have too much cash and it doesn't know what to do with it?  No as it could do dividends if it wanted to give it back to investors. So it is returning the cash back to investors? Not quite. While some investors may get cash from Apple, I'd suspect most shareholders aren't likely to see cash unless they are selling their shares so I wouldn't say yes to this without qualification. At the same time, the treasury shares Apple has can be used to give options to employees or be used in acquisitions for a couple of other purposes.