> A buyback is a more efficient dividend. It doesn't force a realized gain, and stockholders can choose the size of their cash out whenever they want, instead of the company forcing it.
That goes into financial accounting engineering, something I'm really not fond of, efficiency in dribbling taxes due is not something I consider an advantage, it's a bug of the system.
> You could make the same wrong about claim about dividends distorting market price my making the stock temporarily more valuable shortly before the dividend pays out.
Probably another inherent issue I see in the current system, dividends should be paid out in proportion to the time an investor held the shares, they took higher risk by holding them for longer and deserve the full reward, someone just speculating right before a dividend payout should not have much reward since they had no skin in the game while the company accrued their extra cash in hand to be paid out.
The current incentives reward more speculative and short-term decision making rather than companies generating the most value to society in the longer term. I do not think that's the most efficient way to price companies: return of shareholder value, that should be a consequence of a good company, not an objective in itself (as it's been since the Jack Welch plague over MBAs).
Again, I look at the case of Boeing, a company that gained a lot of value due to producing good products, with quality, and the downfall it's going through from maximising shareholder value with buyback programs, cutting corners, etc. The current incentives do not punish this kind of egregious behaviour enough.