Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if MSFT had 100B USD in cash and spent it all in stock repurchase, then, in theory, its stock price wouldn't move but its market cap would go down by 100B ? In the process of buying shares back, the market capitalization would increase due to the increase in share price. The share price would absolutely move. This is why companies have stock buy-backs, in order to pump up the share price. The 'buyback ratio' is the…
Frankly, this is opinion is so uniformed I'm not sure where to start... so welcome to Finance 101. > In the process of buying shares back, the market capitalization would increase due to the increase in share price. Wrong. If that was true, you'd have a company spending money and having a market cap that increases. See the problem? Generating money out of nothing... > The share price would absolutely move. Wrong. If…
That's not completely true. If a company has $10bn of excess cash and a market capitalisation of $50bn you cannot simply assume that the business is worth $40bn. The market might be assigning a value to this cash lower than the nominal value (for example because there is a risk that the management will just do some stupid acquisition with the money). And beyond valuation considerations, stock prices are affected by supply and demand: buybacks create some artificial demand.