CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), Chewy (NYSE: CHWY), and Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX) are three stocks that the market has turned on. All three are down 30% from their highs, with investors weighing a variety of factors. However, amid the carnage, these companies are working to inspire confidence by announcing new buyback programs.
Buyback announcements often signal that a company believes the market is undervaluing its stock. This is because when a company buys its own stock, it is essentially investing in itself. While companies can also use buybacks to lower outstanding share counts and add tailwinds to per-share metrics, this isn’t the most likely motivation when shares are down significantly. Taking a deeper look at CrowdStrike, Chewy, and Nutanix’s buyback announcements helps to decipher how confident these companies are going forward.
CrowdStrike Signals That Buyback Spending Could See a Meaningful Shift
Since hitting all-time highs in November 2025, CrowdStrike’s share price moved down steeply, falling more than 30%. The largest driver comes from fears that artificial intelligence (AI) tools could reshape the cybersecurity industry.
Notably, Anthropic claims that its new Mythos model can detect and exploit vulnerabilities much better than traditional systems. At the same time, AI tools in the hands of bad actors would make cybersecurity more important than ever.
The tension that investors are wrestling with is whether incumbents like CrowdStrike benefit from this or whether their business models are significantly disrupted by new tools.
The company has spent $150.6 million on buybacks over recent months. This comes as it sees “a growing disconnect between our improving momentum fueled by AI tailwinds and our current valuation.” Furthermore, CrowdStrike just authorized an additional $500 million program. This brings the firm’s total buyback capacity up to $1.5 billion, equal to around 1.6% of its market capitalization.
This authorization is relatively small. However, it appears that late 2025 to early 2026 is the first period in which CrowdStrike has meaningfully engaged in buybacks. Its additional authorization suggests this could continue. Overall, its recent use of buybacks and the company’s statement indicate a fairly significant amount of confidence going forward. However, it seems unlikely that AI-driven concerns will abate near-term.
Chewy Tripples Buyback Capacity as Pet Formations Stall
Shares of e-commerce platform Chewy, which specifically caters to pet owners, have also taken a massive tumble, falling more than 40% from their 52-week high. One of the factors likely weighing down Chewy stock is the lack of growth in net household formations. This essentially measures whether pet ownership is rising. The company said near the end of 2025 that it sees formations "remaining flattish."
In its latest earnings call, the company said it was not forecasting a significant rebound in this metric.
Net household formations are very important for Chewy, as they signal whether the company’s addressable market is growing, declining, or remaining the same.
Chewy spent approximately $55 million on buybacks in each of the last two quarters as its share price fell. Based on previously made statements, this left the firm with approximately $250 million in buyback capacity.
Along with announcing a new acquisition, the firm has since added a $500 million authorization, bringing its total capacity to approximately $750 million. For Chewy, this is a significant figure, equal to approximately 7% of its market capitalization.
With the firm essentially tripling its buyback capacity, this is a solid indicator of confidence going forward.
Nutanix Ups Buyback Capacity to Over 8% of Its Market Cap
Last up is Nutanix. The software company competes in the computing infrastructure virtualization space. Its software allows companies to pool their computing resources and allocate them efficiently to various tasks. This helps ensure that these valuable pieces of hardware are fully utilized rather than sitting idle.
Nutanix competes against Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), whose VMware platform leads the industry. However, since acquiring VMware, Broadcom has drastically increased prices, leading to consternation among customers. This creates an opportunity for Nutanix.
Still, as a software company, AI-driven fears have pressured the stock like the rest of the industry. The company also lowered its revenue and free cash flow outlook during its latest earnings call.
This stems from customers seeing longer server lead times, impacting Nutanix’s revenue timing, since the company’s software runs on top of this hardware. Overall, shares are down more than 50% from their 52-week high.
Notably, Nutanix announced a buyback authorization increase of $750 million, bringing its total capacity to $779 million. This represents a very substantial 8.5% of the firm’s market capitalization. Over the last 12 months, Nutanix greatly increased its buyback spending by 31% year over year to around $716 million. The firm’s new authorization gives it the ability to continue at this strong pace, a positive indicator.
Analysts Eye a Significant Recovery in CrowdStrike Amid AI Fears
Among this group of stocks, CrowdStrike is the most interesting name going forward. The company has become one of the dominant players in the cybersecurity industry. However, it faces considerable uncertainty. AI can make cybersecurity easier to implement, potentially hurting CrowdStrike, but also creates new surfaces, like AI agents, that require security. Wall Street analysts have maintained a generally bullish outlook on the stock. The MarketBeat consensus price target near $505 implies almost 30% upside in shares.
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The article "From CrowdStrike to Chewy, These Tanking Stocks Are Announcing Buybacks" first appeared on MarketBeat.
