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Here's an unpopular opinion or three (buy one, get two free!). A share count that decreases steadily, year after year and quarter after quarter, indicates a company that throws off a lot of cash, run by managers who are lazy, stupid, dishonest, or more interested in virtue signalling than doing right by their shareholders. They may be using repurchases at high prices to hide stock-based compensation, or justifying them under the cloak of "signalling confidence," or they may have an inflated idea what the company is worth. But repurchases at prices that are too high are simply destructive to value."

Apple's CFO (Luca Maestri) has talked about their average price for each share bought back over the last ten years.I forget the number quoted.

Rough math shows:

$554,300,000,000 spent over the past ten years

10,311,000,00 number of shares reduced

$53.76 average price for each retired share

I'll take it.