By Levin Stamm

(Bloomberg) -- US share buybacks could increase by $600 billion over the coming years as repurchases limit the supply of stocks, according to strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

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A team including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou expect the dollar value of buybacks to jump further after hitting a record $1.5 trillion in 2025. The trend will be driven by a rebound in repurchase volumes to the 3% to 4% of equity market cap range seen before the pandemic, up from 2.6% currently.

“The US buyback force, which has propagated the equity market strongly this year, is likely to become even stronger over the coming years,” they wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

Source: JPMorganSource: JPMorgan

Globally, buybacks in the first eight months of 2025 have already matched last year’s total. The repurchases, combined with subdued IPO activity, have kept equity supply negative, the strategists said.

“From a supply point of view, publicly-traded equities remain well supported for an unprecedented fourth year in a row as the publicly-listed share count continues to shrink,” Panigirtzoglou and his colleagues wrote.

Buybacks have been a powerful factor in stock performance this year. US stocks with the highest buyback ratio to their market capitalization have outperformed the broader S&P 500 equally-weighed benchmark by nearly six percentage points year-to-date.

Still, other forces could keep repurchases in check. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists including Ben Snider said earlier this week that buyback growth at S&P 500 companies stalled recently after a record-setting first half of the year.

“Elevated interest rates and surging capex spending will constrain buyback growth unless equity valuations unexpectedly decline or AI investment slows sharply,” the Goldman strategists wrote.

--With assistance from Michael Msika.

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