Larry Fink Talks the Talk But Neglects the Walk

In 2014, BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink, in his first missive to top CEOs, implored business leaders to think long term. Specifically, he called on them to stop using so much cash on stock-boosting buybacks and invest in growth instead. Four years later, stock buybacks are expected to have neared $520 billion in 2017. Yes, that's down about 6 percent from 2014, but it's still four times what they were two decades ago. At the same time, spending on capital expenditures has barely budged. What's more, pretty much everyone expects buybacks to soar this year, fueled by a massive tax cut.

It's not clear Fink has done much to back up that 2014 letter. The biggest buyer of its own stock is Apple Inc., which is on track to spend about $235 billion since 2012. The second-biggest investor in Apple, behind Vanguard, is BlackRock, which through its funds holds just more than 6 percent of the iPhone maker's stock. Fink seems to be in a good position, better than pretty much anyone else, to tell Apple to quit, or at least limit the buybacks. And yet there is no record he has. And Apple certainly hasn't curbed its stock buybacks.