Buybacks are beating dividends in U.S. ETF market

Investors in U.S. exchange-traded funds are showing they would rather have stock buybacks than dividends these days. The Invesco BuyBack Achievers ETF, which invests in companies that repurchased at least 5% of their shares during the past 12 months, gained 11% in the one-month period ended Friday. The rally enabled the buyback fund to surpass the Invesco Dividend Achievers ETF based on year-to-date performance, shown in the chart. “Dividend achievers” are companies that have raised payouts annually for at least 10 years.