"In November 2016, Goldman Sachs’ chief equity strategist David Kostin estimated that, in 2017, S&P 500 companies will spend $780 billion on buybacks .
...

For most of the 20th century, stock buybacks were deemed illegal because they were thought to be a form of stock market manipulation. But since 1982, when they were essentially legalized by the SEC, buybacks have become perhaps the most popular financial engineering tool in the C-Suite tool shed. And it’s obvious why Wall Street loves them: Buying back company stock can inflate a company’s share price and boost its earnings per share — metrics that often guide lucrative executive bonuses.

As Reuters wrote recently, “Stock buybacks enrich the bosses even when business sags.”

"All cash on a balance sheet is shareholder’s property. In the history of business, I can’t think of any precedent for taking excess cash (which technically belongs to shareholders) out of the corporation and swapping it for a different kind of property, without the owner’s explicitly signing off. And specifically in this case, that cash is being swapped for an inherently more risky asset."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aalsin/.../#6739b5e66b1e