Buyback Scorecard Have Stock Buybacks Lost Their Credibility?Best & Worst CompaniesIndustry ComparisonsThe table below ranks the 305 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent or more than $1 billion of their shares from March 31, 2014 to March 31, 2016. 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—300 | 301—305 | ||||||||
| Company | Industry | Market Capitalization | $ Total Buyback | $ Total Buyback / Market Cap | Buyback Strategy | Buyback Effectiveness | Buyback ROI | |
| Average | $45,750 | $3,542 | 10.2% | 3.0% | -8.6% | -5.3% | ||
| Median | $20,394 | $1,726 | 7.8% | 3.6% | -7.4% | -5.3% | ||
| 1 | Tyson Foods | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 26,034 | 1,341 | 5.2 | 27.2 | 35.4 | 72.2 |
| 2 | NVIDIA Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 19,311 | 1,401 | 7.3 | 35.8 | 7.0 | 45.3 |
| 3 | Nasdaq | Diversified Financials | 10,879 | 584 | 5.4 | 28.2 | 7.1 | 37.4 |
| 4 | Darden Restaurants | Consumer Services | 8,502 | 643 | 7.6 | 23.5 | 9.7 | 35.5 |
| 5 | Global Payments | Software and Services | 8,446 | 671 | 7.9 | 31.4 | 2.3 | 34.4 |
| 6 | VeriSign | Software and Services | 9,692 | 1,553 | 16.0 | 20.2 | 10.2 | 32.4 |
| 7 | O’Reilly Automotive | Retailing | 26,553 | 2,293 | 8.6 | 33.8 | -1.1 | 32.2 |
| 8 | Dr Pepper Snapple Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 16,738 | 950 | 5.7 | 38.1 | -6.0 | 29.8 |
| 9 | Northrop Grumman Corp. | Capital Goods | 35,809 | 5,562 | 15.5 | 28.8 | 0.5 | 29.4 |
| 10 | McDonald’s Corp. | Consumer Services | 113,314 | 13,170 | 11.6 | 15.6 | 11.3 | 28.7 |
| 11 | NIKE | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 104,693 | 6,144 | 5.9 | 27.8 | 0.6 | 28.6 |
| 12 | Altria Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 122,817 | 1,389 | 1.1 | 34.7 | -4.9 | 28.1 |
| 13 | Starbucks Corp. | Consumer Services | 88,243 | 3,489 | 4.0 | 27.2 | 0.1 | 27.4 |
| 14 | Cigna Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 35,101 | 1,807 | 5.1 | 29.2 | -2.0 | 26.5 |
| 15 | Sysco Corp. | Food and Staples Retailing | 26,384 | 1,711 | 6.5 | 13.1 | 11.9 | 26.5 |
| 16 | Electronic Arts | Software and Services | 20,448 | 1,355 | 6.6 | 54.3 | -18.0 | 26.5 |
| 17 | Ross Stores | Retailing | 23,235 | 1,396 | 6.0 | 26.3 | 0.0 | 26.4 |
| 18 | The Home Depot | Retailing | 167,181 | 13,907 | 8.3 | 27.8 | -1.4 | 26.0 |
| 19 | Alaska Air Group | Transportation | 10,230 | 950 | 9.3 | 35.0 | -6.9 | 25.7 |
| 20 | Fiserv | Software and Services | 22,869 | 2,437 | 10.7 | 28.8 | -2.4 | 25.7 |
| 21 | Hasbro | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 9,996 | 501 | 5.0 | 21.6 | 3.4 | 25.6 |
| 22 | Avery Dennison Corp. | Materials | 6,441 | 530 | 8.2 | 16.8 | 5.5 | 23.2 |
| 23 | UnitedHealth Group | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 122,542 | 4,797 | 3.9 | 27.4 | -3.4 | 23.1 |
| 24 | Masco Corp. | Capital Goods | 10,469 | 557 | 5.3 | 19.9 | 2.1 | 22.4 |
| 25 | Expedia | Retailing | 16,236 | 664 | 4.1 | 22.3 | 0.0 | 22.3 |
| 26 | Intuitive Surgical | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 22,646 | 1,199 | 5.3 | 14.7 | 5.9 | 21.5 |
| 27 | Raytheon Co. | Capital Goods | 36,666 | 1,892 | 5.2 | 16.7 | 3.5 | 20.8 |
| 28 | AutoZone | Retailing | 23,788 | 2,429 | 10.2 | 20.8 | 0.0 | 20.7 |
| 29 | Microsoft Corp. | Software and Services | 436,831 | 27,905 | 6.4 | 21.4 | -0.9 | 20.3 |
| 30 | Henry Schein | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 14,146 | 625 | 4.4 | 16.9 | 2.3 | 19.6 |
| 31 | Aetna | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 39,278 | 1,049 | 2.7 | 24.3 | -3.9 | 19.4 |
| 32 | Kimberly-Clark Corp. | Household and Personal Products | 48,514 | 2,499 | 5.2 | 15.6 | 2.9 | 19.1 |
| 33 | Republic Services | Commercial and Professional Services | 16,428 | 759 | 4.6 | 20.3 | -2.1 | 17.8 |
| 34 | Waste Management | Commercial and Professional Services | 26,234 | 1,450 | 5.5 | 18.4 | -0.6 | 17.7 |
| 35 | Humana | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 27,263 | 1,296 | 4.8 | 30.0 | -9.7 | 17.4 |
| 36 | KLA-Tencor Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 11,334 | 845 | 7.5 | 17.3 | -0.1 | 17.2 |
| 37 | Accenture | Software and Services | 71,985 | 5,038 | 7.0 | 14.5 | 2.1 | 16.9 |
| 38 | Lockheed Martin Corp. | Capital Goods | 67,666 | 4,366 | 6.5 | 20.7 | -3.5 | 16.5 |
| 39 | Lowe’s Cos. | Retailing | 67,981 | 8,173 | 12.0 | 22.9 | -5.3 | 16.3 |
| 40 | Southwest Airlines Co. | Transportation | 28,586 | 2,320 | 8.1 | 37.4 | -15.5 | 16.0 |
| 41 | Costco Wholesale Corp. | Food and Staples Retailing | 69,183 | 1,089 | 1.6 | 18.3 | -2.0 | 15.9 |
| 42 | Adobe Systems | Software and Services | 46,920 | 1,175 | 2.5 | 16.3 | -0.5 | 15.7 |
| 43 | Kellogg Co. | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 26,964 | 1,298 | 4.8 | 13.7 | 1.7 | 15.5 |
| 44 | Visa | Software and Services | 183,663 | 8,779 | 4.8 | 15.2 | -0.2 | 14.9 |
| 45 | DENTSPLY SIRONA | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 14,900 | 664 | 4.5 | 13.5 | 1.1 | 14.7 |
| 46 | Valero Energy Corp. | Energy | 30,171 | 3,944 | 13.1 | 14.3 | 0.0 | 14.3 |
| 47 | Tesoro Corp. | Energy | 10,312 | 744 | 7.2 | 31.0 | -12.8 | 14.3 |
| 48 | Intercontinental Exchange | Diversified Financials | 27,990 | 1,406 | 5.0 | 8.7 | 5.0 | 14.2 |
| 49 | Assurant | Insurance | 4,900 | 728 | 14.9 | 9.6 | 4.2 | 14.2 |
| 50 | The TJX Cos. | Retailing | 51,914 | 3,460 | 6.7 | 10.8 | 3.0 | 14.1 |
Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from March 2014 to March 2016. Includes the 486 members of the Market Capitalization as of: 3/31/2016. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than | ||||||||
