[gruez]

>At the end of a buyback the company owns more of its own shares, and investors own less

No, they own the same amount (as a group, proportionally), and each remaining shareholder owns more. Furthermore, the shareholders (as a group that owned the stock before the buyback was done) does get paid, because some of the shareholders sold their stake for cash.

>Dividends are payments to those who own shares, and the company does not own more of anything after a Dividend pay out.

Dividend payments aren't free. In fact, you can see that for dividend paying stocks, the share price steadily goes in the months leading up to a dividend payment, and on the dividend date it goes down roughly equal to the dividend paid.

[unkulunkulu]

> Dividend payments aren't free. In fact, you can see that for dividend paying stocks, the share price steadily goes in the months leading up to a dividend payment, and on the dividend date it goes down roughly equal to the dividend paid.

I thought it was a matter of math: company gave away some amount of money per share so it should have lost exactly that amount in valuation, what’s the catch?

[kgwgk]

Taxes are one of the reasons why the decline in price due to the dividend distribution may not be exactly equal to the amount distributed. And of course the decline in price due to the dividend distribution cannot be measured.