Dividends or Buybacks? The Story of How to Waste Shareholder Money

Some readers fired back: Dividends might be small, but for at least a few of these companies, buybacks are big -- and that's rewarding shareholders in ways similar to dividends. It's a fair point -- to a point. Some of these companies are providing real value through buybacks. Based on three-year average share buybacks, HP, for example, will repurchase its entire current market cap sometime within the next decade (based on current shares prices, of course). Things could turn disastrous, but in all likelihood these repurchases are a tremendous deal for shareholders.... Read more