标普上市公司回购股份引发担忧（哈佛商业评论）

A Risky Uphill Climb

危险的上坡

Source: Harvard Business Review 哈佛商业评论

Key words:

Stock/share 股票

Repurchase 回购

Outstanding share 流通股（交易所流通的股份数量）

Liquidity 流动性

Fragility 脆弱性

Buyback 回购/Sharebuyback 股票回购 = Share repurchase

Resilience 韧性，灵活性

When companies repurchase their stock on the open market,investors often profit in the short term, because by reducing the number of outstanding shares,buybacks boost the price of those that remain. But the purchases drain firms ofliquidity,increasing their fragilityin the event of hard times. Spending on buybacks by the 373 companies listed on theS&P 500 from

1997 through 2018 has soared in recentyears—raising fears about firms’ resilience in the face of a downturn or a crisis like the one weare currently experiencing.

当公司在公开市场上回购股票时，投资者通常会在短期内获利，因为回购减少了流通股的数量，从而推高了剩余股票的价格。但是这些购买耗尽了公司的流动性，在困难时期增加了他们的脆弱性。从1997年到2018年，标准普尔500指数(S&P500)包含的373家上市公司回购股票的支出近年来大幅增加，这让人们担心，在面对经济低迷或像我们目前正在经历的这样的危机时，这些公司的韧性如何。