Warren Buffet, in his 2011 letter to shareholders, laid out the two conditions he believes when present should compel management to undertake share buybacks: ‘First, a company must have ample funds to take care of its business, and second, its stock is selling at a material discount’. Given DBS’s position as Singapore’s largest local bank by deposits, the first test for liquidity is easily met. More importantly, given the recent crash in its stock price, the second and harder-to-satisfy test for valuation is also met. Check out this historical chart of share buybacks conducted by DBS:

Source: SGX filings

DBS management significantly increased the size of share buybacks since the stock collapsed in late February 2020. They have cumulatively spent S$431 million on share buybacks in one month between 26 February and 23 March. This amount is significantly more than that in any of each of the previous four...