Shares of Walgreens dove early Friday, a day after the drugstore chain said it was suspending its dividend, breaking a streak of quarterly shareholder payouts that stretches back more than 90 years.

In a rare move on Wall Street, Chipotle Mexican Grill’s board has approved a 50-for-1 stock split.

S&P 500 companies responded by rewarding shareholders with record amounts of buybacks in 2018, with each quarter setting an all-time high. The pullback in buybacks may also reflect a desire by companies not to get stuck buying their own stock near record highs. Buybacks are still loftySilverblatt emphasized that buybacks remain "strong" when compared with a normal year. Business spending is 'sluggish'The Federal Reserve's expected rate cuts later this year could encourage a rebound in buybacks. But critics argue that excessive buybacks deepen America's inequality problem because stock market ownership skews towards the rich.