Forgive me for sounding condescending as I am keenly aware that it infuriates people on this forum that I often claim a higher intelligence, but I can tell you that your questioning how the company can buy back shares and still not show more profit represents a gross lack of understanding of basic accounting. Suffice to say that stock buybacks are not funded from nor accounted for in quarterly income, and have zero impact on earnings, nor can they have an impact on earnings based on GAAP rules. Now, do I agree stock buybacks are bad. Yes. Stock buybacks are terrible. As you intimated it implies management doesn't know how to invest the companies profits to grow the company so they resort to financial gimmickry to increase PE growth.
Next, you talk about how you would invest for the future while times are good. Well, don't mean to burst your bubble, but management has a very concise capital budget plan with precise metrics. They are putting capital to work in a highly disciplined manner which is why Wall St. has been rewarding our stock price above all other airlines.
Lastly, to your comment "you are not being shown all the cards". This applies to Mako's comment below as well. The simple fact is that airlines are one of the simplest businesses to understand. You have passengers, tickets, oil, and labor and pretty much that's it. You can't hide much. So no you actually can predict PS with a great deal of accuracy, and we can make a bet and see in February next year if I am close. I predict that we get between 5 to 7% this year.
We'll see
Mako,
First, I really wish you would do away with the anonymity thing, but whatever . . . in every single other post you have made on this forum I have always agreed and found your remarks to be poignant and insightful, but in this one case I must say it sounds more like "Chem Trails" and "Tin Foil Hats". Lorenzo stole from Eastern that is true, but he did it in a legal way that was accounted for in the books. Yes, corporations have lied egregiously, but United today is not one of those corporations. Profit Sharing is worth thousands of dollars per year and is not something that can be gamed. That is my entire point, and if you take the time to truly understand the math in my post you will see that what I am saying is true.