Buyback Effectiveness: Spend vs. Share Count Impact

How much cash S&P 500 companies spend buying back stock, and how much of that spend shows up as fewer shares outstanding instead of being offset by stock-based-comp dilution.
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Trailing 12mo Buyback Spend
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Summed across covered S&P 500 constituents
Avg. Buyback Intensity
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Buyback spend ÷ operating cash flow, TTM
Avg. Dollar Buyback Yield
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Buyback spend ÷ market cap, TTM
Median Dilution Offset
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Share of $ spend not reflected in a smaller float

Buyback intensity by sector

Trailing-12-month buyback spend as a share of trailing-12-month operating cash flow, averaged across each sector's constituents.

Buyback intensity by Fed regime

Cross-company median (buyback spend ÷ operating cash flow) for each calendar quarter, grouped by that quarter's trailing-3-month Fed funds regime.

Buyback intensity vs. change in Fed funds rate

Each point is one calendar quarter. X is the trailing 3-month change in the effective Fed funds rate, Y is that quarter's median buyback intensity.

Dollar buyback yield vs. net share-count reduction

Each point is one S&P 500 company. On the 45° line, every dollar spent on buybacks shrinks the float by the same amount. Below it, some of the spend is offset by new share issuance (stock-based comp, option exercises).

Largest buyback spenders, trailing 12 months

By dollar amount, regardless of company size
TickerSectorTTM Spend$ Yield
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Highest buyback intensity

Largest share of operating cash flow spent on buybacks
TickerSectorIntensityTTM Spend
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Most dilution-offset

Biggest gap between $ spent and float actually shrinking (min. 0.1% dollar yield).
TickerSector$ YieldOffset
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All companies with buyback data on file

Trailing-12-month spend, intensity, dollar yield, net share-count change and dilution offset for the full S&P 500.
Show full list
Symbol Sector TTM Spend▾ Intensity▾ $ Yield▾ Net Yield▾ Offset▾
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"Net Yield" is the trailing-12-month figure from Share Count Trends (the negative of the % change in shares outstanding). "Offset" is blank where the dollar yield is under 0.1% of market cap, because the ratio isn't meaningful on a denominator that small.

Methodology

Buyback spend. It comes from Alpha Vantage's CASH_FLOW statement. Every mega-cap checked reports "None" for paymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock but has a populated proceedsFromRepurchaseOfEquity. That value is negative when cash went out for repurchases that quarter and positive when net proceeds from share issuance (an ATM equity program, common at REITs) exceeded repurchases. This page counts negative-value quarters as buyback spend and a net-issuer quarter as $0 spent. A few tickers report through the named field instead, which is used as a fallback. Trailing-12-month figures need all four recent quarters reported. A company with a gap in its latest filing is left out of the TTM figures.

How this differs from other buyback pages. Share Count Trends reads the net effect of buybacks, issuance and stock-based comp from the share count, but says nothing about how much cash moved. Shareholder Yield derives its buyback yield from the same share-count change, not from actual spend. This page adds dollar buyback spend from the cash flow statement. Comparing the dollar buyback yield (spend ÷ market cap) with Share Count Trends' net share-count change for the same company shows how much of the spend shrinks the float and how much is absorbed by new shares. A company that spends heavily but shows little float reduction is diluting itself about as fast as it buys back stock.

Tests. The Fed funds regime comparison uses the same trailing-3-month-change classification as Small Cap vs. Large Cap Spread and Margin & Leverage Cycle, against a cross-company median quarterly buyback intensity. A ~500-company panel would count the same macro quarter hundreds of times and overstate any correlation. It tests the common claim that buybacks are the first thing companies cut when the cost of capital rises, with a regime bar chart and a regression against the trailing-3-month Fed funds change. The dilution-offset scatter uses Pearson (OLS) and Spearman rank correlation, as on Factor Analysis.

Sector and company name, and the market cap used for the dollar yield, come from Sector Beeswarm. This page is a one-time snapshot as of the date below, not a recurring refresh, since buyback pace and cash flow statements don't move much day to day.

Source: Alpha Vantage: CASH_FLOW, FEDERAL_FUNDS_RATE, COMPANY_OVERVIEW (market cap, via Sector Beeswarm), BALANCE_SHEET (net share-count change, via Share Count Trends)