Sometimes it may be best for companies to hoard cash at the top of the stock-market cycle and use it in the next trough to buy back shares at a discount.
The unemployment rate has dropped more than 40% of the way back to its pre-recession level, but the employment-to-population ratio is closer to its trough than its pre-recession peak.
Both CEOs took over their companies near the bottom of the capital markets trough and have worked their companies back up to a stock price nearly identically above the pre-crash all-time high.