Listening to Analysts like Eric Nuttal, he advocates for share buybacks because he can model them. So, share buybacks are great if all have a team to do the modeling and trade the stock.  However, if you are invested in the stock for dividend returns it, you may simply not be interested in a company that only pursues debt reduction, share buybacks, and does not provide meaningful dividends.
 
Companies that give the analysts what they want, pursue debt buy downs, and share buybacks, do not have the interests of a dividend investor in mind. So, this will limit the pool of potential investors that would have interest in your shares.
 
Analysts like Eric Nuttal also have their own professional trading desk, that know who and when every trade is made of a stock they are following, so they enhance their investment thesis by being professional traders. They will not buy a stock or may limit their position depend on their ability to impact the trading of that stock and understand its liquidity.
 
I believe it enhances Eric involvement in companies that are doing share buybacks, and he can track the buyback in action, and monitor what companies are willing to pay for their own stock and how their buyback is progressing. It gives him an edge.
 
The only problem with share buybacks is the Market ultimately decides the value of your company and you can’t beat the market. So ultimately the market will determine the value of your stock, and a buy back may temporarily increase the demand for your stock, it will ultimately land at the value that is determined by the market.
 
Fixer Upper
 
Many stocks are recovering from the bearish commodity cycle that we just experience and have to much debt on their balance sheet. Or they feel they have to many shares in their float.
 
I personnel don’t care how many shares are in a float and feel it will be valued accordingly. More shares, lower value. I feel like share buybacks have the potential of being bad for the company and reduce it balance sheet strength.
 
TOU
 
 
This is not a fixer upper, it got a reasonable number of shares, and zero net debt on the balance sheet. So a special dividend is a flag waving high to the industry, they have free cashflow, more than 500 million a quarter, and the have no debt objectives they have not met already, and their happy with their share float.
 
Optionality is what exists at TOU they can pay out $1.50 a quarter in dividends or they can buy another company for 500 million with cash. Every Quarter.  So I like TOU’s business model, it is not a fixer upper.
 
IMHO