Share repurchases have been widely used in global markets for years for various purposes such as to pay out cash, to stabilize stock prices, and so on. However, their use has recently been challenged due to the economic and financial uncertainty imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak. Not only governments have put bans or restrictions on the repurchasing transactions but also some major companies themselves have suspended their buyback programs to preserve cash. On the other hand, repurchase activity has manifested itself in Turkish capital markets somewhat unexpectedly under uncertain market conditions. This study is one of the first attempts to explore the impact of share repurchase transactions on stock returns in an emerging market severely hit by COVID-19. Our analyses reveal that market reaction to repurchase activity in the aftermath of the pandemic declaration of March 11, 2020 was significantly positive. Moreover, short-term stock performance of repurchasing firms was far greater than that of their non-repurchasing peers. These results have important policy implications in terms of corporate payout decisions which have recently been challenged by the new coronavirus.

回购股票已经在全球市场上广泛使用了多年，用于支付现金，稳定股票价格等各种目的。但是，由于COVID-19爆发给经济和金融带来的不确定性，最近它们的使用受到了挑战。不仅政府禁止或限制回购交易，而且一些大公司本身也暂停了回购计划以保留现金。另一方面，在不确定的市场条件下，回购活动已在土耳其资本市场中有所表现，出乎意料。这项研究是探索在受COVID-19严重打击的新兴市场中股票回购交易对股票收益的影响的首次尝试之一。我们的分析表明，在2020年3月11日大流行性宣布之后，市场对回购活动的反应是积极的。此外，回购公司的短期股票表现远高于非回购公司的股票表现。这些结果对公司的支出决策具有重要的政策意义，而新的冠状病毒最近对这些支出提出了挑战。