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Corporate buy-backs occur after the board of directors determines the value of their own shares relative to the cost of debt. Companies offer debt instruments to the market when they want to preserve their equity position because business prospects are good. Companies offer equity when they want to share the pain. Stock-buybacks are the kissing cousins of offering debt, but stock-buybacks are generally funded with free cash flows rather than debt. It is a stock pickers market; a general swoon takes a policy change affecting a significant fraction of businesses in the economy. The most typical prospect change affecting business is a tax policy change. As bad as it is, current tax policy is predictable. Tax reform has been effectively taken off the table as part of the broader conflict between the House and the White House because the White House cannot be trusted to implement legislated policy.