| Buyback Scorecard Stock Buybacks Prepare for the Bear Market Best & Worst Companies Industry Comparisons |
The table below ranks the 284 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent of their shares from June 30, 2013, through June 30, 2015. The companies are ranked according to their return on investment from these repurchases. As calculated by Fortuna Advisors, a New York City-based consultancy that compiled the data for Institutional Investor, buyback ROI measures the overall rate of return of buybacks, based on the internal rate of return of the cash flows associated with them. Buyback strategy tracks the performance of the underlying stock in terms of annualized total shareholder return. Once Fortuna determines buyback ROI and buyback strategy, buyback effectiveness can then be calculated as simply the difference between the two, determined as compounded return.
| How the S&P 500 Stack Up as Stock Repurchasers 1—50 | 51—100 | 101—150 | 151—200 | 201—250 | 251—284 | ||||||||
| Company | Industry | Market Capitalization | $ Total Buyback | $ Total Buyback / Market Cap | Buyback Strategy | Buyback Effectiveness | Buyback ROI | |
| Average | $49,337 | $3,692 | 9.5% | 17.8% | -3.2% | 14.2% | ||
| Median | $22,959 | $1,908 | 7.6% | 17.9% | -3.7% | 14.9% | ||
| 1 | Darden Restaurants | Consumer Services | 8,941 | 503 | 5.6 | 18.1 | 37.8 | 62.7 |
| 2 | Humana | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 28,650 | 1,559 | 5.4 | 55.0 | 4.9 | 62.6 |
| 3 | AmerisourceBergen Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 23,361 | 1,637 | 7.0 | 46.0 | 9.1 | 59.4 |
| 4 | Southwest Airlines Co. | Transportation | 22,114 | 1,824 | 8.2 | 70.8 | -8.1 | 57.0 |
| 5 | The Kroger Co. | Food and Staples Retailing | 35,219 | 2,284 | 6.5 | 48.2 | 5.4 | 56.2 |
| 6 | Anthem | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 43,421 | 4,964 | 11.4 | 48.6 | 4.6 | 55.5 |
| 7 | Edwards Lifesciences Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 15,319 | 731 | 4.8 | 38.1 | 12.3 | 55.1 |
| 8 | Tesoro Corp. | Energy | 10,621 | 468 | 4.4 | 26.8 | 20.2 | 52.4 |
| 9 | Cigna Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 41,693 | 2,874 | 6.9 | 43.2 | 5.0 | 50.3 |
| 10 | Red Hat | Software and Services | 13,931 | 595 | 4.3 | 25.6 | 19.0 | 49.5 |
| 11 | Apple | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 722,577 | 71,910 | 10.0 | 47.3 | 1.3 | 49.3 |
| 12 | O'Reilly Automotive | Retailing | 22,822 | 1,873 | 8.2 | 43.6 | 3.7 | 48.9 |
| 13 | Aetna | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 44,509 | 2,330 | 5.2 | 41.1 | 5.3 | 48.5 |
| 14 | CarMax | Retailing | 13,817 | 1,218 | 8.8 | 25.3 | 18.2 | 48.1 |
| 15 | Walgreens Boots Alliance | Food and Staples Retailing | 92,103 | 1,347 | 1.5 | 35.8 | 6.9 | 45.1 |
| 16 | HCA Holdings | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 37,587 | 3,190 | 8.5 | 43.9 | 0.3 | 44.4 |
| 17 | UnitedHealth Group | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 116,132 | 6,797 | 5.9 | 40.1 | 3.0 | 44.3 |
| 18 | Equifax | Commercial and Professional Services | 11,554 | 496 | 4.3 | 28.9 | 10.9 | 43.0 |
| 19 | Expedia | Retailing | 13,949 | 750 | 5.4 | 33.3 | 6.7 | 42.2 |
| 20 | Broadcom Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 30,772 | 1,365 | 4.4 | 19.9 | 17.6 | 41.1 |
| 21 | Hasbro | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 9,310 | 556 | 6.0 | 29.1 | 8.9 | 40.6 |
| 22 | Biogen | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 95,019 | 1,288 | 1.4 | 37.0 | 2.3 | 40.2 |
| 23 | Starbucks Corp. | Consumer Services | 80,401 | 1,680 | 2.1 | 29.6 | 8.0 | 40.0 |
| 24 | Leggett & Platt | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 6,708 | 351 | 5.2 | 24.1 | 12.5 | 39.7 |
| 25 | Lowe's Cos. | Retailing | 62,462 | 8,217 | 13.2 | 35.2 | 2.7 | 38.8 |
| 26 | Cintas Corp. | Commercial and Professional Services | 9,677 | 923 | 9.5 | 39.1 | -0.6 | 38.3 |
| 27 | Altera Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 15,480 | 920 | 5.9 | 21.5 | 13.8 | 38.3 |
| 28 | Dr Pepper Snapple Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 13,977 | 925 | 6.6 | 30.5 | 5.7 | 37.9 |
| 29 | The Walt Disney Co. | Media | 193,668 | 10,743 | 5.5 | 33.5 | 2.9 | 37.4 |
| 30 | The Sherwin-Williams Co. | Materials | 25,628 | 2,705 | 10.6 | 26.7 | 8.3 | 37.2 |
| 31 | CVS Health Corp. | Food and Staples Retailing | 118,200 | 10,163 | 8.6 | 34.8 | 1.4 | 36.6 |
| 32 | Delphi Automotive | Automobiles and Components | 24,569 | 1,783 | 7.3 | 37.0 | -1.3 | 35.3 |
| 33 | Northrop Grumman Corp. | Capital Goods | 30,740 | 6,034 | 19.6 | 46.6 | -7.9 | 35.0 |
| 34 | McGraw Hill Financial | Diversified Financials | 27,493 | 1,114 | 4.1 | 41.7 | -4.8 | 34.9 |
| 35 | Marriott International | Consumer Services | 20,454 | 2,953 | 14.4 | 39.4 | -3.2 | 34.9 |
| 36 | Eli Lilly and Co. | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 88,552 | 1,736 | 2.0 | 22.4 | 10.1 | 34.7 |
| 37 | The Home Depot | Retailing | 144,355 | 14,285 | 9.9 | 24.7 | 6.8 | 33.1 |
| 38 | Ross Stores | Retailing | 20,114 | 1,281 | 6.4 | 26.6 | 5.1 | 33.1 |
| 39 | Fiserv | Software and Services | 19,613 | 1,789 | 9.1 | 35.4 | -1.9 | 32.8 |
| 40 | Moody's Corp. | Diversified Financials | 21,830 | 2,474 | 11.3 | 35.0 | -2.0 | 32.2 |
| 41 | Intuit | Software and Services | 27,779 | 2,844 | 10.2 | 31.3 | 0.7 | 32.2 |
| 42 | NIKE | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 92,870 | 5,162 | 5.6 | 29.9 | 1.6 | 32.0 |
| 43 | AutoZone | Retailing | 20,589 | 2,500 | 12.1 | 29.6 | 1.6 | 31.7 |
| 44 | Celgene Corp. | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 91,795 | 5,869 | 6.4 | 37.8 | -4.7 | 31.3 |
| 45 | The Western Union Co. | Software and Services | 10,497 | 893 | 8.5 | 19.4 | 9.5 | 30.7 |
| 46 | Valero Energy Corp. | Energy | 31,840 | 2,427 | 7.6 | 27.3 | 1.4 | 29.1 |
| 47 | Ball Corp. | Materials | 9,676 | 616 | 6.4 | 27.9 | 0.8 | 29.0 |
| 48 | Cardinal Health | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 27,674 | 1,709 | 6.2 | 41.7 | -9.1 | 28.8 |
| 49 | Altria Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 96,184 | 1,132 | 1.2 | 24.6 | 3.0 | 28.3 |
| 50 | Activision Blizzard | Software and Services | 17,581 | 5,830 | 33.2 | 30.3 | -1.9 | 27.9 |
| Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from June 2013 to June 2015. Includes the 488 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 06/30/2015. Companies included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 billion. | ||||||||
