Timely Buybacks and Retiring of Stock

Aside from comparatively low valuations (pe, pbr, etc) and high yields, two other positives supporting Japanese stocks at current levels are share buybacks and retiring of treasury stock. By way of an article published by the Nikkei on Sunday, the WSJ reports Tokyo-listed companies are expected to have canceled more than 1.11 billion shares worth sum ¥2.5 trillion ($25B), up 30% from the prior peak in fiscal 2006. Make no mistake, the timing couldn’t be better for firms to buyback and retire stock. Two companies mentioned in the article are Toyota (JP:7203) [[TM]], which plans to retire the equivalent of 4.5% of shares outstanding and NTT DoCoMo (JP: 9437) [[DCM]], which by our calculations plans to retire about 2% of shares outstanding.