Buyouts could be led to another record year despite the outcry

However, Silverblatt's data also goes against the idea that companies simply accumulate buybacks and dividends and do not invest in their businesses.

Capital expenditures increased by 13.9% compared to the previous quarter and by 15.5% compared to the same period of the previous year. In fact, Silverblatt said the trend, across the 63.3% of reporting companies, could approach the record level of investment spending in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Wall Street began to rely on the takeover, as well as the organic growth of the nearly 10-year-old bull market. According to Nick Colas, co-founder of Data Trek Research, investors have withdrawn about $ 232 billion of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds over the last three years, but $ 1.8 trillion has been invested in buybacks. companies.

"Any real rules on redemptions, whether by working conditions or by the tax code, is negative for valuations and share prices," Colas said in a recent note to customers.

Despite their current status as political fruit at hand, Mr. Colas said that buyouts could be "better than alternatives", such as large mergers that often did not work well for workers, or companies relocating their activities to avoid the labor regulations proposed in a Schumer-Sanders invoice.

"Stock repurchases are of a deeply cyclical nature, the fact that their size has finally attracted DC's attention is a worrying sign of a profit peak for companies," wrote Colas. "The legislation on financial matters is almost always reactive, not proactive."