How does Amazon’s stock buyback impact its earnings per share and balance sheet?

April 19, 2022 by Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA 4 Comments

In March 2022, Amazon’s board of directors authorized it to buy back up to $10 billion of its stock. The stock buyback will take place over a multi-year period. Amazon may not buy back the full $10 billion of its stock; the board’s authorization is simply the maximum amount of stock that can be repurchased.

View a quick tutorial video about treasury stock (stock buybacks) below (or at this link) and then answer the following questions.

Questions

  1. What are some reasons that Amazon may want to buy back its own stock?
  2. Assume that Amazon repurchases $1 million of its stock. How will Amazon’s balance sheet be impacted by this purchase?
  3. Compare a stock buyback with a stock issue. Which transaction (stock buyback or stock issue), if any, will cause stockholders’ equity to increase? To decrease?
  4. Assume that a company has 1,000,000 shares authorized and 600,000 shares issued. How many shares will it have outstanding if it has repurchased 150,000 shares?
Ch 10 Stockholders' equity, Financial accounting
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About Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA

Dr. Wendy Tietz is a professor of accounting at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, USA. She is also a textbook author with Pearson Education.
View all posts by Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA →

4 Responses to “How does Amazon’s stock buyback impact its earnings per share and balance sheet?”

  1. Jenifer Zihlman Reply April 25, 2022 at 2:47 pm

    Thank you for these as they add so much to the class and I loved your little video on the explanation of Treasury Stock. One of the best and simplest I have see yet.

    Is there anywhere that you post the answers to all of these little projects just so I don’t have to bother you asking for the keys for them each time I do one?

    • Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA Reply April 25, 2022 at 3:36 pm

      Hi Jenifer. Thank you for the kind words. I do not post the answers anywhere – I have no way to keep students from accessing solutions.

  2. Jenifer Zihlman Reply August 17, 2022 at 2:13 pm

    Hi Wendy,

    How do I get the answer key for the Amazon buy back exercise?

    Jenifer Zihlman, CPA Finance Department Gilbreath Reed Career and Technical Center https://www.garlandisdschools.net/grctc Office-972-487-4588* 64049 Voice Message Center-903-600-1491 Email-jbzihlma@garlandisd.net [cid:8d2e48e4-2231-474d-9d84-0082e4aeaa33]

    • Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA Reply August 19, 2022 at 7:41 am

      I do not provide any instructor materials for Accounting in the Headlines (unless there is a link in the blog post to request the instructor materials for a project.) For short blog posts, I do not prepare solutions because I have no way to control who gets the solutions if I post them – I know some instructors use the blog posts as assignments – so I don’t want to provide answers where they are discoverable. Do know, however, for these new blog posts this year that there is a tutorial video included in the post that covers the material.

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