Price & Market BehaviorCore researchlive in production

Buyback Drift

Updated quarterlyData needs: mediumlong only

1995

#36 buyback_drift — Ikenberry-Lakonishok-Vermaelen 1995 / Peyer-Vermaelen 2009.

In plain terms

Companies that announce (or quietly start) share buybacks beat the market by 3-4% over the next year, strongest in beaten-down value names.

How it works

Companies announcing open-market share repurchases earn ~3-4% abnormal return over the subsequent 12 months. Effect is strongest in "value-distressed" announcers (book-to-market in the top quartile, recent price drawdown). We approximate buyback announcements by detecting net share count contractions in quarterly fundamentals — ΔSharesOutstanding < 0 over 2 consecutive quarters is a strong proxy for an active buyback programme.

Live results

22 times picked on its own · 45 times inside a blend (41 beat the stock) · updated 2026-06-06

This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 45 such blended picks (41 of which beat simply holding the stock). Picking it on its own is only one of the ways it shows up.

How its picks scored vs. buy & hold

Each pick is graded on a recent year it was never tuned on, against simply owning the same stock

Where its edge concentrates

Share of picks in each company-size group that beat buy & hold

How often it trades

Active vs. patient. Bars on the left mean it waits for rare setups; bars on the right mean it trades often

Return vs. buy & hold

How much each pick beat or trailed simply owning the stock over the test year (extreme microcap moves trimmed)

Loading substrate evidence…

Data dependencies

Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
Fundamentals
Quarterly fundamentals (income, balance, cash-flow) from FMP + SEC.

Expected edge

Reported return: ~3-4% ann. abnormal return
Tested over: 1980-1990 (Ikenberry-Lakonishok-Vermaelen)

Companies announcing open-market share repurchases earn ~3-4% abnormal return over the subsequent 12 months.

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