I was thinking of buying some more of these but then began to...

I was thinking of buying some more of these but then began to wonder whether the market price is actually higher than it would otherwise be but for the demand associated with the ongoing buy back. Price is an outcome of the balance between demand and supply.

From googling I found some snippets of info not very supportive of buybacks, as follows. I am no financial analysis guru to know how relevant any of the points may be to GAP.....regards

"Investors should prefer a management team to give back excess cash if that team cannot find attractive investment alternatives. For a company to increase its value, a firm should be investing in projects of equal or higher return on investment. If they do not have such opportunities, then it would be better to give that cash back to investors, so they can individually allocate it to another opportunity."

"It's very hard to imagine a scenario where buybacks are a good idea, except if the buybacks are undertaken when the company feels its share price is far too low. But, then again, if the company is correct and its shares are undervalued, they will probably recover anyway. So, companies that buy back shares are, in effect, admitting that they cannot invest their spare cash flow effectively."

"Bonuses that CEOs get are often linked to share price gains and increased earnings per share, so they have an incentive to pursue buybacks even when there are better ways to spend the cash or when the shares are overvalued."

"Contrary to popular wisdom (and, in many cases, the wisdom of company boards), increasing EPS doesn't increase fundamental value. Companies have to spend cash to purchase the shares; investors, in turn, adjust their valuations to reflect the reductions in both cash and shares. The result, sooner or later, is a canceling out of any earnings-per-share impact. In other words, lower cash earnings divided between fewer shares will produce no net change to earnings per share."