Is Wal-Mart Just Wasting $15 Billion?

At the company's annual shareholder meeting today, Wal-Mart

had rapping associates, Will Smith is the MC, and the company is talking about China being the biggest online shopping market, but did they just waste $15 billion of your money? At the shareholder meeting, the company announced it would be buying back $15 billion worth of stock, which replaces a previous $15 billion program. The company had completed $12.9 billion as part of that program. The company also announced a dividend increase, going from $1.21 per share to $1.46 per share. While the dividend increase is nice, is the $15 billion just throwing money away? Most investors like to see share buyback programs, but very few companies know how to implement them effectively, and the $15 billion would probably have been best served being added on to the dividend increase. The company spent $2.4 billion in closing its purchase of Massmart, which operates in South Africa, so the company is trying to grow through acquisitions. Perhaps putting a portion of the $15 billion into the Chinese company 360.com, of which Wal-Mart reportedly has a stake in. Wal-Mart representatives denied the stake in the company, but the report has been out there for quite a while. A company that has a $187 billion market cap buying back nearly 10% of the company would ordinarily be seen as a good sign, but the company already had a $15 billion buyback program in place, and shares have gone nowhere over the past year, gaining less than 4%, compared to the S&P 500's near 20% return. This return excludes dividends. Since the stock market started to rebound in March of 2009, shares have returned a paltry 9% excluding dividends. That is abysmal. It is obvious that the buybacks are not working, as the company has been unable to grow top line revenues as it competes on the low end with Target

. Market share is being taken away by companies like Dollar General

, Family Dollar

and the like. The Wal-Mart Express concept has some promise on this front, as the company tries to diversify away from its superstores and compete with the dollar stores in areas where a superstore is not needed or can not fit. A portion of the $15 billion could be thrown into there. It seems to me that $15 billion is just being wasted here. The stats do not like, a 9% return in 2+ years is nothing, especially when every stock and their brother has jumped thanks in part to monetary and fiscal policy. Those low, low prices are not just at Wal-Mart's stores. They are Wal-Mart's share price, and the $15 billion does not seem like it is going to help.