Here's what you really need to know about stock buybacks
Here's what you really need to know about stock buybacks
MW Here's what you really need to know about stock buybacks
關於股票回購，以下是你真正需要知道的
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
作者：馬克·胡爾伯特(Mark Hulbert)，MarketWatch
Evidence that share repurchases are bullish for investors
股票回購對投資者有利的證據
Few topics have spawned more confusion and misinformation than share repurchases, or stock buybacks.
很少有話題比股票回購或股票回購引發更多的困惑和錯誤信息。
Many investors view buybacks as benign ways for companies to return cash to shareholders. Others see pernicious and toxic instruments of manipulation that enable top executives to enrich themselves at their workers' and shareholders' expense.
許多投資者認為，回購是公司向股東返還現金的良性方式。其他人則認為這是有害的、有毒的操縱手段，使高管能夠在犧牲員工和股東利益的情況下牟取暴利。
This debate would become a lot less polarized if both sides were to recognize that not all buybacks are created equal. A buyback signifies one thing when it is used to absorb the otherwise diluting effect of an options exercise by a company's CEO -- and especially if its timing is planned to hit the market just before that exercise.
如果雙方都認識到，並不是所有的回購都是平等的，這場辯論就會變得不那麼兩極分化。當回購被用來吸收公司首席執行官行使期權的稀釋效應時，回購意味着一件事--特別是如果回購的時機計劃在期權行使之前投放市場的話。
In contrast, a buyback means quite another when the company's board genuinely believes its stock is significantly undervalued.
相比之下，當公司董事會真心認為其股票被嚴重低估時，回購意味着完全另一回事。
I will leave to others the political and policy debate about buybacks. But from an investor's perspective, the real issue is the net supply of a company's shares. Other things equal, an increased supply dilutes a company's earnings and is bad for shareholders, while a reduced supply is just the opposite.
我將把有關回購的政治和政策辯論留給其他人。但從投資者的角度來看，真正的問題是公司股票的淨供應量。在其他條件不變的情況下，供應增加會稀釋公司的收益，對股東不利，而供應減少則正好相反。
Viewed in this way, investors shouldn't focus exclusively on buybacks in isolation but on myriad factors that can change the total of a company's outstanding shares. Stock and option grants that are part of an executive's compensation will increase that total, for example, as will any secondary offering. Mergers and acquisitions will reduce market-wide supply.
從這個角度來看，投資者不應該只關注單獨的回購，而應該關注可能改變一家公司流通股總數的眾多因素。例如，作為高管薪酬一部分的股票和期權授予將增加這一總額，任何二次發行都是如此。併購將減少整個市場的供應。
One firm that pioneered this comprehensive focus is TrimTabs, now part of EPFR (a division of Informa Financial Intelligence). In as close to real time as possible, the firm calculates the net impact on market-wide share totals ("U.S. equity float") of everything from share repurchases, mergers and acquisitions, to secondary offerings, convertible bond offering, and insider sales.
TrimTabs是這種全面關注的先驅之一，現在是EPFR(Informa Financial Intelligence的一個部門)的一部分。在儘可能接近實時的情況下，該公司計算從股票回購、合併和收購到二次發行、可轉換債券發行和內幕銷售等各種活動對全市場股票總額(“美國股票流通股”)的淨影響。
Winston Chua of TrimTabs' media relations office said in an email that "the way you want to interpret these figures is that... decreases in float are bullish." Notice that this bullish impact has nothing to do with the company's motivation in repurchasing its shares--a cynical or manipulative motive will have the same impact over time as a genuine belief in its shares' undervaluation.
TrimTabs媒體關係辦公室的温斯頓·蔡(Winston Chua)在一封電子郵件中表示，“你想要解讀這些數據的方式是……浮動資金減少是看漲的。”請注意，這種看漲的影響與該公司回購股票的動機無關--隨着時間的推移，憤世嫉俗或操縱的動機將與真正相信其股票被低估的影響相同。
So far in 2019, the U.S. stock market's float has shrunk by more than $300 billion, according to Chua. If the float continues to shrink for the rest of the year at the same pace, the full year total will top $700 billion. As you can see from the chart below, that would put this year's pace more or less in line with the previous five years' average -- below the individual year totals of 2015, 2016, and 2018, but above those of 2014 and 2017.
據蔡美兒稱，2019年到目前為止，美國股市的流通股已經縮水超過3000億美元。如果今年剩餘時間浮存金繼續以同樣的速度縮水，全年總額將超過7000億美元。從下面的圖表可以看出，這將使今年的增速與前五年的平均水平基本一致--低於2015年、2016年和2018年的年度總和，但高於2014年和2017年的增速。
This is important information because some market commentators have worried that the pace of buybacks this year would shrink dramatically over last year's blistering pace. But once we focus on all factors affecting the stock market's share count, it's evident that this isn't a major concern.
這是重要的信息，因為一些市場評論員擔心，今年的回購速度將比去年的火爆速度大幅放緩。但是，一旦我們關注所有影響股市股票數量的因素，很明顯，這不是一個主要的擔憂。
The bullishness of a reduced equity float is supported by academic research. One prominent study was published last Fall in the Financial Analysts Journal entitled "Net Buybacks and the Seven Dwarfs (https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2469/faj.v74.n4.4)," conducted by three researchers from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
減少流通股的樂觀情緒得到了學術研究的支持。去年秋天，阿布扎比投資局(Abu Dhabi Investment Authority)的三名研究人員在“金融分析師雜誌”(Financial Analysts Journal)上發表了一項著名的研究，題為“淨回購與七個小矮人的(https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2469/faj.v74.n4.4)，”。
These researchers use the phrase "net buybacks" to refer to what TrimTabs calls float. They found that net buybacks explain the bulk of the difference in different countries' stock returns over the last several decades. This comes as a big surprise, since most of us would otherwise think that these return differences would be caused by different rates of economic growth. But the researchers found that net buybacks exerted a far bigger influence.
這些研究人員使用“淨回購”一詞來指代TrimTabs所説的浮動。他們發現，淨回購解釋了過去幾十年不同國家股票回報率差異的主要原因。這令人大吃一驚，因為我們中的大多數人都會認為，這些回報差異是由不同的經濟增長率造成的。但研究人員發現，淨回購的影響要大得多。
A related straw in the wind: the market-beating performance of an exchange-traded fund that invests in individual stocks that have experienced the biggest reduction in floats -- the TrimTabs All Cap US Free-Cash-Flow ETF (TTAC). To be sure, this fund only began trading in September 2016, so its track record is more suggestive than conclusive. Still, it's encouraging that since its inception the ETF has beaten the S&P 500's total return by 1.9 annualized percentage points.
相關的一根稻草：一隻投資於流通股減少最多的個股的交易所交易基金(ETF)--TrimTabs All Cap US Free-Cash-Flow ETF(TTAC)--的表現好於市場。可以肯定的是，這隻基金在2016年9月才開始交易，因此它的往績更多的是暗示，而不是決定性的。儘管如此，令人鼓舞的是，自成立以來，該ETF的年化總回報率比標準普爾500指數高出1.9個百分點。
The bottom line? Don't let the polarized debate about buybacks cloud your investment judgment. Your focus should be on all factors that increase or reduce a company's or the overall market's share count. Buybacks are just one such factor of many.
底線是什麼？不要讓關於回購的兩極分化辯論影響你的投資判斷。你應該關注所有會增加或減少一家公司或整個市場的股票數量的因素。回購只是眾多因素中的一個。
Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. Hulbert can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com (mailto:mark@hulbertratings.com)
馬克·胡爾伯特(Mark Hulbert)是MarketWatch的定期撰稿人。他的胡爾伯特評級(Hulbert Ratings)跟蹤支付固定費用接受審計的投資通訊。Hulbert的聯繫方式是mark@hulbertratings.com(郵件地址：mark@hulbertratings.com)
Read: The market has been on a tear -- and it's time to get greedy (http://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-stock-market-has-been-on-a-tear-history-says-its-time-to-get-greedy-51561971600)
閲讀：市場一直很火爆，現在是時候讓貪婪的(http://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-stock-market-has-been-on-a-tear-history-says-its-time-to-get-greedy-51561971600)
More: 5 reasons why 2019 has been gold's time to glitter (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-reasons-why-2019-has-been-golds-time-to-glitter-2019-07-01)
更多：2019年是黃金閃耀(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-reasons-why-2019-has-been-golds-time-to-glitter-2019-07-01)的5個原因
-Mark Hulbert; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
-馬克·胡爾伯特(Mark Hulbert)；415-439-6400；電子郵件：AskNewswres@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
(完)道瓊通訊社
July 01, 2019 16:25 ET (20:25 GMT)
2019年7月1日美國東部時間16：25(格林尼治標準時間20：25)
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