treasury stock
- noun
- /ˈtrɛʒəri stɑk/
- Specialized
- The company increased its treasury stock by buying back 100,000 shares from the open market.
Examples
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To improve its financial ratios, the board authorized a share repurchase, adding more to its treasury stock.
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The company bought back treasury stock to increase shareholder value.
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Shares held as treasury stock do not have voting rights or receive dividends.
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Many investors are confused about treasury stocks and their implications.
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The company decided to buy back some of its shares, thereby increasing its treasury stock.
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After the repurchase, the number of shares in treasury stock rose significantly.
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Investors were pleased to see the increase in treasury stock as it indicated the company's strong financial position.
Synonyms
Shares the company has bought back and keeps that have no voting rights
Shares a company has bought back and keeps without voting rights or payments to owners
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'treasury' (funds/holding) and 'stock' (corporate shares) give a partial clue — it suggests shares held by a treasury — but the precise corporate-accounting meaning (repurchased shares held by the company, not outstanding, no voting/dividends) is a specialized, technical sense that a B1 learner would not reliably infer from the parts alone. Because the term requires domain knowledge about share repurchase and accounting treatment, it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The noun treasury stock comes from the picture of a company putting its own shares (the stock) back into its treasury or safe, like storing goods in a cupboard. Because the company keeps those shares, they are 'not outstanding' and usually have 'no voting rights' or 'no dividends', so the term means shares the company holds itself.