Are Buybacks good?

DealBook - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - New York Times Companies continually make resource allocation decisions and there are times when they decide that investing in their own shares will have a better return than making other investment choices. In my opinion, growth inevitably suffers because a company is buying back its own stock. Mature companies should be investing in and actively growing a portfolio of new ideas and opportunities. Growth requires cash and if the cash is being invested in a company's own stock, the result can only offer short term reward in the stock market and may actually the company for the long term.