Re:Dividends and Buybacks Now Larger Than Total Reported Ear...
by nostrademons on Saturday May 25, 2019 @05:25AM
(#20007951)
Depends on the conclusion you're trying to draw from the data.
The headline is "Dividends and buybacks now larger than the total reported earnings of the S&P 500." For that conclusion, it's absolutely relevant that Apple et al are doing the buybacks and that their market cap dwarfs many of the companies on the S&P 500 (which has a threshold of $6B to enter, vs. close to $1T for Apple). Apple deciding that they're going to return some of the cash to shareholders they've been stockpiling for the last 5ish years would dwarf the entire earnings of most of the bottom 200 stocks in the S&P 500. That's not a report on weakness or danger in the market, it's a report of what a small number of companies are doing with a large cash hoard. It's sorta like reporting that "Residents of Medina, WA lost more money to divorce in 2019 than they made in total wages" without reporting that Jeff Bezos is a resident.
The headline is "Dividends and buybacks now larger than the total reported earnings of the S&P 500." For that conclusion, it's absolutely relevant that Apple et al are doing the buybacks and that their market cap dwarfs many of the companies on the S&P 500 (which has a threshold of $6B to enter, vs. close to $1T for Apple). Apple deciding that they're going to return some of the cash to shareholders they've been stockpiling for the last 5ish years would dwarf the entire earnings of most of the bottom 200 stocks in the S&P 500. That's not a report on weakness or danger in the market, it's a report of what a small number of companies are doing with a large cash hoard. It's sorta like reporting that "Residents of Medina, WA lost more money to divorce in 2019 than they made in total wages" without reporting that Jeff Bezos is a resident.