Companies' Borrowing Spree Darkens Stock Market Future

``"Companies have said, ‘We don't have an ability to grow organically, so we can distract shareholders instead,'" according to Jody Lurie, a credit analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, which manages $63 billion. "When they buy back shares, all it does is optically make earnings per share look better."... Companies reacted to the Federal Reserve's rumblings about raising interest rates by going on a borrowing spree.'''