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Technology Stocks : IBM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: andreas fauler who wrote (6189)	2/18/2000 10:23:00 AM
From: Jonathan Edwards	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8220

The consolidated statement of stockholders' equity in the annual report shows how much they spend on stock buybacks. In 1998, net income was $6,340 million and $6,847 million was spent on "common stock purchased and retired." I have studied just enough accounting to be dangerous, but when a company shows positive net income for a period and the ending stockholders' equity for the period is less than the beginning stockholders' equity, I take it to mean they've been spending more money on dividends and stock buybacks than they're making. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's certainly not something they can keep doing forever...