Nov 22 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com U.S. SHARE BUYBACKS HIT RECORD IN Q3 (0921 EST/1421 GMT) S&P 500 (.SPX) companies have made record quarterly share repurchases in Q3 2021, amounting to $225 billion, topping the previous record of $223 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, data from S&P Dow Jones Indices showed. Given the annual record of $806 billion set in 2019, a December quarter buyback as well as the remaining unreported Q3 of $204 billion in repurchases would set a new annual record, Senior Index Analyst Howard Silverblatt wrote in a research note on Saturday. The 12-month high is $823 billion, set in the 12-months ending in March, 2019. "At this point, I"ve penciled in a new annual record, with a new 12-month record being in the works," Silverblatt said. Buybacks have roared back this year after bottoming out at $89 billion in the second quarter of last year as the U.S. economy shutdown due to the pandemic. (Medha Singh) ****** NASDAQ COMPOSITE: FLYING ON FUMES? (0845 EST/1345 GMT) The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) is currently on pace to rise around 25% this year. That puts its rolling three-year rise on track to be 142%. That would be its biggest such rise since the three-year period ending Dec. 31, 1999, just prior to the bursting of the tech bubble. Meanwhile, the IXIC ended at an all-time high on Friday. That makes 46 record closes so far in 2021 vs 55 for all of last year. However, one measure of the Composite"s internal strength has once again broken down: After hitting a high of 75.7% earlier this month, which was well shy of its 2021 peaks, the Nasdaq New High/New Low (NH/NL) index fell to 53.3% on Friday. That was its weakest reading, with the IXIC at a record close, since Aug. 30. Back then, five trading days later, the Composite topped and then slid as much as 8% into its October trough. Of note, just since early 2020, there have been five sharp IXIC declines from record high-territory, averaging about 15%, all of which were preceded by multi-week/multi-month NH/NL index divergence. Unless this measure can at least reclaim its descending 10-day moving average, the risk is that it continues to trend down to test the 2020 trough, which was at 1.2%. Additionally of note, last week saw three Hindenburg Omens triggered on the Nasdaq, and two on the NYSE Composite (.NYA). These clusters can highlight an especially fractured market, vulnerable to instability. (Terence Gabriel) ***** FOR MONDAY"S LIVE MARKETS" POSTS PRIOR TO 0845 EST/1345 GMT - CLICK HERE: read more Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own