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% | ||
| 301 | E*TRADE Financial Corp. | Diversified Financials | 6,844 | 351 | 5.1 | 5.1 | -52.1 | -49.6 |
| 302 | Marathon Oil Corp. | Energy | 9,399 | 449 | 4.8 | -45.9 | -13.3 | -53.1 |
| 303 | NRG Energy | Utilities | 4,110 | 476 | 11.6 | -35.1 | -34.9 | -57.8 |
| 304 | Murphy Oil Corp. | Energy | 4,338 | 375 | 8.6 | -40.2 | -30.1 | -58.2 |
| 305 | Micron Technology | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 10,862 | 1,034 | 9.5 | -31.4 | -42.9 | -60.8 |
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 | ||||||||
