Stock market buybacks are a great way for publicly traded companies to reward shareholders and signal confidence for 2026.The buyback rationale is simple enough. Rather than reinvesting every dollar into projects or paying higher dividends, firms can repurchase shares, thereby lowering share count, boosting metrics (like earnings per share), and giving long-term holders more ownership per share.“When a company’s profit, or net income, is divided by a smaller number of shares, then earnings per share rise,” ...