Spending trillions on U.S. buybacks leads to `demonizing'

Criticism of U.S. companies for repurchasing shares amounts to “demonizing the only buyer” of stocks for more than a decade, Tony Dwyer, chief market strategist at Canaccord Genuity LLC, wrote in a report Wednesday. Dwyer cited data compiled by the Federal Reserve that showed businesses were net buyers of trillions of dollars in shares since 2009. Purchases by companies in the S&P 500 Index totaled $5.3 trillion from 2010 through 2019, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC.