Where does our data come from?
Every repurchase we surface on BuybackStocks originates from a primary SEC filing: 8-K item 8.01 disclosures, 10-Q and 10-K commentary, tender offer 13E-3/SC TO documents, and repurchase-plan updates in earnings press releases attached as exhibits. We do not use secondary aggregators, wire-service summaries, or self-reported figures. The latest filings feed updates roughly every 5 minutes during market hours.
What does "buying back" actually mean in a filing?
Not every repurchase announcement is a real repurchase. The four categories, in decreasing order of commitment:
- Executed repurchases — shares already bought. Reported in the 10-Q table "Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities." This is the strongest signal because the money is spent.
- Accelerated share repurchase (ASR) — a contract with an investment bank to deliver shares up-front against a forward. Firm commitment, treasury stock rises immediately.
- Board-authorized program — a dollar cap the company may use over 12-36 months. Authorization is not obligation.
- Rule 10b5-1 plan — an automated repurchase schedule filed by executives or the issuer. Real, but sometimes small and often tied to insider trading windows.
Why do small-cap repurchases matter more per dollar?
An S&P 500 constituent buying back 2% of its float announces nothing that isn't already priced in — the trading algorithms modeled the announcement before the ink dried. A $200M small-cap authorizing 8% of its float against 250,000 shares of average daily volume is a completely different structural event: it can absorb 20-40 trading days of typical selling on its own. That is why BuybackStocks focuses exclusively on the $1M-$300M market cap band.
Float math example. Company X: 100M shares out, ADV of 300K. Board authorizes $12M repurchase at $6.00/share = 2M shares = ~6.7 trading days of pass-through demand if executed evenly under Rule 10b-18's 25% ADV cap. That kind of price-support tailwind is invisible in a large-cap.
Reading the fine print — five red flags
A "$50M repurchase authorization" headline is nothing until you check:
- Is the authorization new capital or a refresh? An "up to $50M" program that already had $47M of unused capacity added only $3M in fresh authorization.
- Time window. A three-year authorization is one-third the intensity of a one-year authorization.
- Insider selling pattern in the prior 12 months. If executives are dumping on the same days the company is buying, you are being tapped.
- Cash balance and free cash flow coverage. A repurchase funded by increased debt at rising rates is a very different animal than one funded from operating cash.
- Convertible/warrant overhang. If a company is buying stock while simultaneously issuing convertible notes, ATM shelves, or warrants at parity, the repurchase may be neutralizing dilution rather than reducing share count.
How is the live list built?
Our EDGAR pipeline ingests every filing with a small-cap classifier applied to the market cap on filing date. New authorizations, tender extensions, and executed 10-Q repurchase tables all populate the same feed with a filing-type badge. You can filter by:
- Announcement type — authorization, tender, executed, ASR
- Size as % of float — the most useful sizing metric
- Market cap band within $1M-$300M
- Sector — repurchases cluster in energy, financials, and industrials at different points in the cycle
Get every new authorization the second it hits EDGAR
Free daily email digest of small-cap repurchase filings. No spam, one-click exit.
Send me the filings →Common misconceptions
"A big repurchase = confidence." Not always. Repurchases can be used to offset dilution from stock-based compensation and can be timed opportunistically against retail investors before dilutive events. The commitment level (executed > ASR > authorization) matters more than the headline number.
"Companies always execute the full authorization." Empirically, roughly 60-70% of authorized capacity actually gets deployed across the average program. Companies that consistently execute the full authorization — season after season — are the ones to track.
"Small-cap repurchases are just noise." The opposite: in low-float names, a mid-sized program can be the difference between a trending stock and one that grinds. The 2020-2023 small-cap universe showed repeatable price-support behavior in the 30 days following authorizations exceeding 5% of float.
What should you do next?
The Small-Cap Repurchases page shows today's filings ranked by size-as-percent-of-float. If you want the same list delivered by email whenever a new authorization crosses a threshold you set, use the signup form on this page. There is no "premium tier" — the live tracker and the alert email are the free tier.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a stock repurchase under SEC rules?
A repurchase of the issuer's own outstanding shares by the issuer or an affiliated purchaser, executed either in the open market under Rule 10b-18 safe-harbor conditions, via a tender offer under Rule 13e-4, in a privately negotiated block, or under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. All four are disclosed in periodic filings; open-market repurchases are reported in the Item 703 table of the 10-Q.
How often is the BuybackStocks live list updated?
The EDGAR pipeline polls the SEC index files roughly every 5 minutes during US market hours (9:30-16:00 ET) and every 15-30 minutes overnight. A new authorization or executed-repurchase disclosure is typically live on the site within 3-10 minutes of hitting EDGAR.
Why do you only cover $1M-$300M market caps?
Repurchases have proportionally larger price impact in the small-cap band because average daily volume relative to program size is much lower. A $50M program in a company with $500K/day of dollar volume is materially different from the same $50M in a name that trades $500M/day.
Is a repurchase announcement bullish?
It depends on the type. Executed repurchases and ASRs are near-term bullish because the demand is real. Board authorizations without a track record of execution are weaker signals — 30-40% of authorized capacity typically goes unused. See our separate data analysis on the question.
Do you track international repurchases?
No. BuybackStocks focuses on US-listed issuers filing with the SEC. Canadian NCIB (Normal Course Issuer Bid) filings, UK share repurchases disclosed via LSE RNS, and European equivalents are not currently in the pipeline.
Can I get an alert only for a specific ticker or sector?
The free daily digest is network-wide. Ticker- and sector-filtered alerts are on the roadmap. Subscribing today gets you added to the digest and to the announcement list for filtered alerts when they launch.