Share repurchase programs have been a heavily discussed topic among investors and analysts, with some questioning their relationship to a company’s financial health. Among the leading reasons companies initiate share repurchase programs is to reduce the number of outstanding shares, thereby increasing the value of the remaining shares. Additionally, companies buy back shares to demonstrate their financial stability to shareholders and to deter a hostile takeover.

However, some critics argue that share repurchase programs are a sign of financial irresponsibility because companies use their capital to buy back shares rather than for other general corporate purposes, such as R&D and debt management. Furthermore, critics note that share repurchase programs can fail to achieve their goals if the US economy slows or if a company’s financial situation or share price declines.

So far in 2025, US publicly traded companies have frequently initiated or extended share repurchase programs to boost share prices and return capital to shareholders amidst an uncertain US economy. Specifically, investors and analysts have expressed concern about potential headwinds from White House actions, including tariff negotiations with major trading partners and government policy changes. According to Birinyi Associates, US publicly traded companies have announced share repurchase programs totaling $983.6 billion as of August 11. The financial research firm projects that US companies will cumulatively repurchase more than $1.1 trillion in stock by the end of 2025.

Despite the high dollar amounts, select critics have noted that this share repurchase trend among US publicly traded companies has been undertaken by only major companies with high market capitalization and is not broad based across various company types. For instance, among S&P 500 companies, the 20 with the largest market capitalization have accounted for 51.3% of share buybacks in 2025. These 20 companies are all defined as mega-cap firms, which have a market capitalization of $200 billion or more.

Like the broader S&P Index, lab tool companies tracked by Instrument Business Outlook (IBO) with the highest market capitalization also initiated or extended their share repurchase programs over the past 18 months. The companies highlighted here are Agilent Technologies (Agilent), Danaher, Mettler-Toledo, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Becton, Dickinson (BD). IBO selected these firms because they have the highest market capitalization among the companies IBO tracks each month for stock price and EPS data. Therefore, these five firms have a considerable presence in the lab tool market. All five companies have market capitalizations between $10 billion and $200 billion, placing them in the large-cap category.

This blog will provide a view of whether these companies have benefited from recent share repurchase programs in terms of stock price change. The stock buyback activity among the five companies used for this calculation and analysis is from April 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025. The five companies’ stock price performance was tracked from their first share purchases in 2024 through September 2025.

In the table below, the share price performance of each company reflects the percentage change between the end-of-day stock price on the estimated first day of buyback activity in 2024 and the end-of-day stock price on the last day of the third quarter of the calendar year. Based on their respective SEC filings, IBO has estimated the first purchasing date for Agilent, BD, and Mettler-Toledo, who did not announce a specific date for their share repurchase activities in 2024.

As shown in the table, all five companies experienced a share price decline between their first buyback in 2024 and September 30, 2025, with the largest decline being 20.8% by BD and 20.4% by Danaher. By comparison, the S&P 500 recorded a 27.6% increase between April 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025.

2025 Repurchase Program Activity

Thermo Fisher Scientific

On November 15, 2024, Thermo Fisher announced that it would replace the remaining $1.0 billion from a previous repurchase program with a $4.0 billion one with no expiration date given. Consequently, in the first quarter of this year, the company repurchased 3.6 million shares valued at $2.0 billion and later repurchased approximately 1.9 million shares valued at $1.0 billion. As of August 1, Thermo Fisher’s stock buyback plan had $1.0 billion of future purchases left.

Danaher

Like Thermo Fisher, Danaher also announced a new share repurchase program last year. Danaher established the program in July 2024. By the end of 2024, the company had repurchased 3.5 million shares. By the end of the second quarter of this year, Danaher had repurchased 4.5 million shares for $1.1 billion. Then, on September 9, 2025, Danaher announced a new repurchase program authorizing the procurement of 35 million shares of common stock. The program is separate from the existing 2024 share repurchase program and has no expiration date.

Becton, Dickinson

Unlike Thermo Fisher and Danaher, BD’s purchase came as part of another announcement. Specifically, in its move to separate its Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions segments from the rest of its businesses, BD initiated its BD 2025 strategy on February 5, 2025, to become a pure-play MedTech company. Part of the strategy was BD entering into an accelerated share repurchase (ASR) agreement in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2024. The agreement ended in the first quarter of this year. Details of the program included BD repurchasing 3.3 million shares of common stock for a total of $750.0 million.

Agilent Technologies

Agilent did not initiate a buyback program in 2024 but did repurchase shares. For Agilent, its stock buyback activity stemmed from its share repurchase program, established on January 9, 2023, authorizing $2.0 billion in share repurchases. By the end of Agilent’s fiscal third quarter period, ending July 31, 2025, the company had procured and retired 737,474 shares of common stock worth approximately $85.0 million. The company has $34.0 million in common stock remaining under the 2023 repurchase program.

Mettler-Toledo

Of the five companies highlighted in this feature, Mettler-Toledo has managed its share repurchase program for more than 20 years. Specifically, Mettler-Toledo’s share repurchase program dates back to 2004. By the end of the second quarter of this calendar year, the company had purchased 32.7 million shares at an average price of $312.57 per share. Therefore, the company has $1.3 billion worth of common stock remaining in the program.

Stock Price Performance

Share repurchase programs are among the few actions in a company’s control that it can influence share price. However, there are various reasons why a company’s share price performance is affected during its share repurchase program. These could be financial performance, macroeconomic conditions, investor activity and company activity, such as M&A, product launches and more, which can all impact a company’s share price. Also, the potential positive effects of share repurchase programs on share prices are supposed to be long term, so they may take time to materialize.

Among these factors that may have had a significant influence on the performance of the five companies in this article are conditions within the laboratory tools market itself. These conditions include low demand in China and funding constraints in the US academic and government market, as well as reduced or paused pharma/biotech capex spending. In addition, tariff activity and uncertainty may have played a role in the third quarter performance and investor outlook.

Conclusion

In conclusion, share repurchase programs are just one of many factors that determine whether a company is in good financial standing. Though the core goals of share purchase programs are consistent across the companies highlighted here, the way each firm manages them varies.
Regarding improving these lab tool vendors’ share prices, as shown in the table above, share repurchase programs may not help in the short term but could help in the long term. However, there are varied factors that go into why a share price increases or decreases. With that said, despite their intended goals, the role of share repurchase programs in a company’s market performance is a nebulous factor.