Are companies abandoning buybacks because equity issuance has become cheaper than debt?
Core argument: $1.5 trillion in net equity issuance over 2024–2025 vs. nearly $12 trillion in buybacks since 2005 drives a structural shift.
For the better part of two decades, a defining feature of the US stock market has been scarcity. Year after year, shares disappeared from public hands, with buybacks by S&P 500 companies alone erasing nearly $12 trillion worth. According to JPMorgan, IPOs, secondary offerings, and other share sales are poised to add roughly $1.5 trillion of stock to the US equity market over the next two years, even after accounting for buybacks. If realized, it would mark the strongest period of net equity issuance since at least the late 1990s. The shift toward selling more equity is being driven not only by a need for capital but by the opportunity to raise it on attractive terms. The cost of equity has been getting cheaper vis-à-vis debt since the Federal Reserve raised rates to a two-decade high in 2023, ending a prolonged era of cheap borrowing. Thanks to a $30 trillion share rally since, the advantage has persisted even as the Fed started cutting rates.

