Well I see your point of course and I pointed out months ago...

Well I see your point of course and I pointed out months ago that this is the inherent paradox of buybacks- that buying the stock pushes up the price thus reducing your value for money.

I suspect the decision is made that the buyback will proceed provided the price doesn't rise above x.xx ($1.70 looks like a pretty strong figure). That's pretty much all you can control, as if you say "don't buy back until the price drop to x.xx" it may never get there. And as soon as they do buy the price goes back up again anyway.

I look on it as an optimisation issue: if the price is below 1.70 management undergoes buyback and the result is acceptable. If the stock goes above 1.70 by itself (eg price of iron magically explodes) then management sits back, does nothing and is happy anyway. So saying "they don't care" might be better put as "has determined a price range that is deemed to be appropriate given current internal valuations and the effective trading range of the stock". And yes, I would maintain that if management genuinely believe that the stock is massively undervalued then to a degree they wouldn't care about a 10% or so variance in the price caused by the buyback.

Given the price has been in a slow decline since the 1.70 peak, more or less, if management are trying to inhibit the price effect of the buyback then I'd say they're doing a good job. Whether the buyback is a good idea is open to question. I do think it' interesting that KS chose to increase his holding recently and you'd only do that if you thought it was undervalued.