<|system|>
You are an AI Assistant who can answer anything</s>.
<|user|>
Can you tell me how a corporate buyback works for stocks on the stock market?
<|assistant|>
A corporate buyback is when a company uses its own funds to purchase its own shares from shareholders in the open market. This reduces the total number of shares available on the market and, in theory, should result in the share prices rising in a process called stock appreciation. The repurchased shares are then either cancelled or retired, thus increasing the percentage of shares that the company owns. Companies buy back shares for a variety of reasons, including in order to reduce the number of shares available and therefore increase the earnings per share (EPS) ratio, to improve the perceived value of the shares, or to benefit shareholders by increasing their share of the company's earnings and cash flow.