Per an article from Zacks Equity Research yesterday:
“Nonetheless, after the Fed's second round of stress test and subsequent approval, WFC resumed repurchases in first-quarter 2021 and raised its share-repurchase authorization by additional 500 million shares.”
Can we just call it what it is?
Management Self -Interest and Poor Use of Capital
Doing the math on the increase in share repurchase authorization at today’s prices: 500 million X $45ish = $22.5 Billion.
Charlie and our always questionable BOD have decided the best use of our capital is to spend $22.5 Billion to artificially and temporarily inflate our stock price and to manipulate our financial metrics. This benefits the executives personally with their lucrative stock option bonuses. But they are unwilling to spend on our systems which are outdated junk, they want to cut 25% of jobs, and most employees barely saw a raise of 2%. No new products, no innovation, no research and development, not nearly enough investment in technology, not doing anything to increase our actual value, no investment in future growth.
Shouldn’t someone be asking if we can’t find something better to do with the money?