Buyback Scorecard Have Stock Buybacks Lost Their Credibility?Best & Worst CompaniesIndustry Comparisons
The 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% | ||
| 101 | MasterCard | Software and Services | 104,965 | 6,592 | 6.3 | 7.1 | -3.1 | 3.8 |
| 102 | XL Group | Insurance | 10,747 | 1,450 | 13.5 | 11.3 | -7.0 | 3.5 |
| 103 | Aon | Insurance | 28,210 | 4,015 | 14.2 | 7.4 | -3.7 | 3.4 |
| 104 | CA | Software and Services | 12,832 | 922 | 7.2 | -2.8 | 6.4 | 3.3 |
| 105 | General Dynamics Corp. | Capital Goods | 40,877 | 6,211 | 15.2 | 15.5 | -10.9 | 2.9 |
| 106 | General Electric Co. | Capital Goods | 295,174 | 8,104 | 2.7 | 10.6 | -7.0 | 2.9 |
| 107 | The Procter & Gamble Co. | Household and Personal Products | 222,613 | 7,607 | 3.4 | 4.4 | -1.8 | 2.6 |
| 108 | Automatic Data Processing | Software and Services | 41,038 | 2,648 | 6.5 | 13.7 | -9.8 | 2.5 |
| 109 | PerkinElmer | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 5,450 | 289 | 5.3 | 5.0 | -2.4 | 2.5 |
| 110 | Comcast Corp. | Media | 149,182 | 11,500 | 7.7 | 6.8 | -4.1 | 2.4 |
| 111 | Illinois Tool Works | Capital Goods | 36,966 | 3,923 | 10.6 | 9.3 | -6.4 | 2.4 |
| 112 | Brown-Forman Corp. | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 20,394 | 1,224 | 6.0 | 10.0 | -7.4 | 1.9 |
| 113 | Expeditors International of Washington | Transportation | 8,911 | 1,024 | 11.5 | 7.3 | -5.2 | 1.7 |
| 114 | Colgate-Palmolive Co. | Household and Personal Products | 63,028 | 2,857 | 4.5 | 5.1 | -3.3 | 1.5 |
| 115 | HCA Holdings | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 30,890 | 4,768 | 15.4 | 18.5 | -14.3 | 1.5 |
| 116 | Amphenol Corp. | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 17,811 | 716 | 4.0 | 9.0 | -6.9 | 1.4 |
| 117 | The Macerich Co. | Real Estate | 11,819 | 800 | 6.8 | 21.8 | -16.9 | 1.3 |
| 118 | L-3 Communications Holdings | Capital Goods | 9,186 | 1,196 | 13.0 | 4.4 | -3.0 | 1.2 |
| 119 | The Western Union Co. | Software and Services | 9,560 | 1,057 | 11.1 | 8.4 | -6.8 | 1.1 |
| 120 | Cisco Systems | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 143,264 | 9,982 | 7.0 | 11.3 | -9.4 | 0.8 |
| 121 | Lam Research Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 13,125 | 745 | 5.7 | 18.3 | -14.9 | 0.7 |
| 122 | Wal-Mart Stores | Food and Staples Retailing | 215,356 | 7,236 | 3.4 | -4.1 | 4.5 | 0.2 |
| 123 | Aflac | Insurance | 26,458 | 2,716 | 10.3 | -0.8 | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| 124 | Analog Devices | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 18,350 | 817 | 4.5 | 5.9 | -5.5 | 0.0 |
| 125 | Stanley Black & Decker | Capital Goods | 15,771 | 1,013 | 6.4 | 12.5 | -11.1 | -0.1 |
| 126 | FLIR Systems | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 4,533 | 261 | 5.8 | -2.0 | 1.9 | -0.1 |
| 127 | The Allstate Corp. | Insurance | 25,486 | 4,450 | 17.5 | 10.3 | -9.7 | -0.4 |
| 128 | eBay | Software and Services | 27,263 | 4,340 | 15.9 | 2.3 | -2.9 | -0.7 |
| 129 | Alphabet | Software and Services | 518,917 | 3,878 | 0.7 | 13.4 | -12.4 | -0.7 |
| 130 | The Dow Chemical Co. | Materials | 56,816 | 4,109 | 7.2 | 4.3 | -4.8 | -0.8 |
| 131 | The Walt Disney Co. | Media | 162,031 | 13,759 | 8.5 | 13.0 | -12.3 | -1.0 |
| 132 | Intel Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 152,821 | 14,851 | 9.7 | 14.3 | -13.4 | -1.0 |
| 133 | United Parcel Service | Transportation | 93,204 | 5,367 | 5.8 | 2.7 | -3.6 | -1.0 |
| 134 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Banks | 216,923 | 11,686 | 5.4 | 3.2 | -4.4 | -1.3 |
| 135 | Target Corp. | Retailing | 49,367 | 4,345 | 8.8 | 16.4 | -15.7 | -1.9 |
| 136 | Torchmark Corp. | Insurance | 6,567 | 632 | 9.6 | 2.8 | -5.2 | -2.6 |
| 137 | The Priceline Group | Retailing | 63,954 | 4,002 | 6.3 | -1.5 | -1.4 | -2.9 |
| 138 | JB Hunt Transport Services | Transportation | 9,500 | 536 | 5.6 | 2.4 | -5.4 | -3.1 |
| 139 | Pfizer | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 183,527 | 13,640 | 7.4 | 1.3 | -4.4 | -3.2 |
| 140 | Ecolab | Materials | 32,746 | 1,331 | 4.1 | 1.8 | -5.2 | -3.4 |
| 141 | Celgene Corp. | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 78,237 | 6,084 | 7.8 | 14.0 | -15.8 | -4.0 |
| 142 | BlackRock | Diversified Financials | 56,397 | 2,662 | 4.7 | 4.4 | -8.2 | -4.2 |
| 143 | The PNC Financial Services Group | Banks | 42,378 | 3,838 | 9.1 | 4.5 | -8.5 | -4.4 |
| 144 | U.S. Bancorp | Banks | 70,461 | 4,525 | 6.4 | 0.8 | -5.4 | -4.6 |
| 145 | Wells Fargo & Co. | Banks | 244,568 | 19,115 | 7.8 | 5.4 | -9.6 | -4.7 |
| 146 | Time Warner | Media | 57,326 | 7,630 | 13.3 | 6.7 | -10.8 | -4.8 |
| 147 | S&P Global | Diversified Financials | 26,277 | 1,398 | 5.3 | 8.6 | -12.4 | -4.9 |
| 148 | Autodesk | Software and Services | 13,090 | 829 | 6.3 | 0.3 | -5.3 | -5.0 |
| 149 | AmerisourceBergen Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 19,747 | 2,798 | 14.2 | 15.9 | -18.0 | -5.0 |
| 150 | Sealed Air Corp. | Materials | 9,409 | 1,038 | 11.0 | 17.3 | -19.1 | -5.0 |
| 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 current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 3/31/2016. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 billion. | ||||||||