S&P 500 Buybacks Grow 12% In 1Q

S&P Global Inc SGPI said its preliminary results indicated that S&P 500 stock buybacks, or share repurchases witnessed a growth of 12 percent to $161.4 billion in the first quarter from $144.1 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. The company added that its S&P Dow Jones Indices witnessed $589.4 billion in share repurchase in the 12-month period ended March. According to S&P, the first quarter share buyback was the second biggest expenditure on record, following the $172 billion spent in third quarter of the year 2007. For the 12-month period ended March 2016, S&P 500 issues spent $589.4 billion on share repurchase, which was 9.5 percent higher than the previous year period's $538.1 billion spent. The year expenditure also set a fresh S&P 500 record, replacing the $589.1 billion spent in the year 2007. Sequentially too, the first quart buyback of the $161.4 billion represented 10.6 percent growth from $145.9 billion recorded in the fourth quarter of the last year. The stock shed 0.19 percent on Wednesday.