Buyback Scorecard Stock Buybacks Wrestle with an Aging BullBest & Worst Companies Industry Comparisons

The table below ranks the 278 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent of their shares from December 31, 2013, through December 31, 2014. 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—278
	Company	Industry	Market Capitalization	$ Total Buyback	$ Total Buyback / Market Cap	Buyback Strategy	Buyback Effectiveness	Buyback ROI
	Average		$49,204	$3,543	8.7%	25.3%	-5.6%	18.1%
	Median		$24,279	$1,744	7.3%	24.5%	-4.7%	17.2%
251	The AES Corp.	Utilities	9,819	630	6.4	15.2	-15.8	-3.0
252	Precision Castparts Corp.	Capital Goods	34,333	1,457	4.2	14.7	-15.5	-3.1
253	Viacom	Media	30,900	8,247	26.7	19.9	-19.2	-3.2
254	Fossil Group	Consumer Durables and Apparel	5,657	1,020	18.0	9.3	-12.5	-4.4
255	The Gap	Retailing	17,837	2,158	12.1	9.0	-12.6	-4.7
256	Joy Global	Capital Goods	4,530	533	11.8	-5.9	0.4	-5.5
257	Xilinx	Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment	11,448	726	6.3	15.5	-18.2	-5.6
258	General Motors Co.	Automobiles and Components	56,150	5,715	10.2	14.2	-18.6	-7.1
259	Hess Corp.	Energy	22,070	5,217	23.6	24.6	-25.8	-7.6
260	FMC Corp.	Materials	7,600	372	4.9	2.0	-10.1	-8.3
261	International Business Machines Corp.	Software and Services	158,781	20,305	12.8	-5.7	-3.7	-9.2
262	Marathon Oil Corp.	Energy	19,093	1,500	7.9	4.4	-13.3	-9.5
263	The Mosaic Co.	Materials	16,951	2,762	16.3	-7.6	-2.1	-9.5
264	Cameron International Corp.	Energy	9,862	2,975	30.2	1.5	-11.0	-9.7
265	Teradata Corp.	Software and Services	6,683	933	14.0	-19.0	10.6	-10.4
266	Occidental Petroleum Corp.	Energy	62,507	3,443	5.5	8.1	-17.7	-11.0
267	Murphy Oil Corp.	Energyl	8,967	875	9.8	3.8	-15.0	-11.7
268	Juniper Networks	Technology Hardware and Equipment	9,655	2,840	29.4	9.6	-19.8	-12.1
269	The ADT Corp.	Commercial and Professional Services	6,323	2,698	42.7	-7.9	-5.7	-13.2
270	Urban Outfitters	Retailing	4,625	500	10.8	-6.8	-8.6	-14.8
271	Discovery Communications	Media	22,900	2,727	11.9	7.6	-20.9	-14.9
272	Ford Motor Co.	Automobiles and Components	59,655	2,177	3.6	19.1	-33.8	-21.1
273	Fluor Corp.	Capital Goods	9,472	975	10.3	7.7	-27.1	-21.4
274	Mattel	Consumer Durables and Apparels	10,485	670	6.4	-4.7	-17.8	-21.7
275	Apache Corp.	Energy	$23,594	2,861	12.1	-5.0	-22.9	-26.7
276	Coach	Consumer Durables and Apparel	10,351	525	5.1	-18.8	-15.5	-31.4
277	Denbury Resources	Energy	2,834	493	17.4	-18.2	-22.6	-36.7
278	Nabors Industries Ltd.	Energy	3,757	250	6.7	6.6	-88.1	-87.3
Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from December 2013 to December 2014. Includes the 493 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 12/31/2014. Companies included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 billion.