
Seems that Oracle has been buying back its own shares to keep its share price high <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/oracle_buyback_programme/>. On its own, this is not automatically a bad thing. I remember reading about a conversation between Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett some years ago, along the lines of: WB: You think your company shares are undervalued? SJ: Yes. WB: You have plenty of spare cash on hand? SJ: Yes. WB: Then use some of that cash to buy back some of your own shares. If you can spend 80¢ and get a dollar, why wouldn’t you? However, the warning sign in the above article is this: The overall effect is that Oracle is now in a net debt position for the first time since 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported this week. In other words, it seems to be borrowing in order to boost its share price. This might not end well ...

Share buy-back. It's such a great US tradition! Some years ago I spent time following the volume of shares being traded on HP stock and the volume of HP stock that HP was buying back. From my calculations the largest single trader of HP stock was HP. At that time HP was marketing itself with the phrase "Invent". One could have been mislead into thinking HP was spending their cash on Research and Development, but it appears that they spent it on share buy-back.
participants (2)
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Ian Stewart
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro