The S&P500 index rose 2.8% in Q3 2005, manipulated upwards by highly motivated corporate executives intent on using stock buybacks to enhance market ‘performance’ and cash in on stock options — before SEC rules requiring greater disclosure of management remuneration become effective in 2006. (Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Table F213)

Stock buybacks by non-financial domestic corporations reached a record annual rate of $446.2 billion in Q3 2005. This was 3.7 times the level of buybacks in the year 2000, the peak of the Great Bubble, and double the level of the previous record in 1998 — a year in which the S&P500 index rose 25%.

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