In a recent article, I issued a reminder that the performance of Wall Street does not always reflect the realities of Main Street.
For instance, as the ISM Manufacturing Index, a measure of industrial America's confidence in the economy, falters to a critical 50-ish level, financial conditions remain highly accommodative. Debt remains cheap, which makes stock repurchase programs an easy decision for corporate executive teams.
As of the first quarter of 2019, American companies had bought back $253 billion of their shares, about $18 billion more than the end of Q1 2018. By reference,