Subject: Share Buybacks: Predictability and Performance
An interesting study of buybacks and how to predict them.

"...buybacks tend to increase a company's stock price."

"Machine learning was applied at the end of each year to predict the likelihood of a buyback occurring in the following year."

"This demonstrates that share buybacks in the following year can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy in all years, and that past buyback and other financial data can be used to predict future buybacks."

"...when the portfolio [JP stocks] was composed of stocks with a high probability of share buybacks, the cumulative excess return ended up at about 30%..."

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/nikkei...

Shaun