| Buyback Scorecard The Risk in No-Risk Stock BuybacksBest & Worst CompaniesIndustry Comparisons |
The table below ranks the 299 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent or more than $1 billion of their shares from December 31, 2013 to December 31, 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—299 | ||||||||
| Company | Industry | Market Capitalization | $ Total Buyback | $ Total Buyback / Market Cap | Buyback Strategy | Buyback Effectiveness | Buyback ROI | |
| Average | $48,969 | $3,699 | 9.2% | 20.8% | -3.9% | 16.3% | ||
| Median | $24,408 | $1,949 | 7.7% | 20.1% | -3.6% | 16.5% | ||
| 1 | Tesoro Corp. | Energy | 12,686 | 594 | 4.7 | 46.7 | 7.1 | 57.1 |
| 2 | NVIDIA Corp. | Semi-conductors and Semi-conductor Equipment | 17,732 | 1,266 | 7.1 | 42.0 | 4.0 | 47.7 |
| 3 | O’Reilly Automotive | Retailing | 24,997 | 2,003 | 8.0 | 43.4 | 2.1 | 46.4 |
| 4 | NIKE | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 106,524 | 5,474 | 5.1 | 31.3 | 10.3 | 44.8 |
| 5 | Starbucks Corp. | Consumer Services | 89,133 | 2,402 | 2.7 | 25.8 | 13.9 | 43.3 |
| 6 | The Kroger Co. | Food and Staples Retailing | 40,773 | 1,986 | 4.9 | 38.7 | 3.2 | 43.1 |
| 7 | VeriSign | Software and Services | 9,741 | 1,527 | 15.7 | 23.1 | 15.0 | 41.5 |
| 8 | Southwest Airlines Co. | Transportation | 28,004 | 2,135 | 7.6 | 60.5 | -12.4 | 40.6 |
| 9 | Dr Pepper Snapple Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 17,605 | 921 | 5.2 | 41.0 | -2.0 | 38.1 |
| 10 | The Home Depot | Retailing | 167,677 | 14,000 | 8.3 | 30.5 | 4.8 | 36.8 |
| 11 | Nasdaq | Diversified Financials | 9,554 | 555 | 5.8 | 26.7 | 7.9 | 36.7 |
| 12 | Masco Corp. | Capital Goods | 9,522 | 414 | 4.3 | 25.2 | 8.3 | 35.6 |
| 13 | Fiserv | Software and Services | 20,902 | 2,413 | 11.5 | 31.9 | 2.0 | 34.6 |
| 14 | Cigna Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 37,695 | 2,283 | 6.1 | 29.7 | 3.4 | 34.1 |
| 15 | Darden Restaurants | Consumer Services | 8,155 | 503 | 6.2 | 16.6 | 14.8 | 33.8 |
| 16 | Northrop Grumman Corp. | Capital Goods | 34,436 | 5,850 | 17.0 | 33.5 | 0.0 | 33.5 |
| 17 | Valero Energy Corp. | Energy | 34,047 | 3,905 | 11.5 | 30.2 | 2.3 | 33.2 |
| 18 | Altria Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 114,131 | 1,493 | 1.3 | 31.1 | 0.5 | 31.8 |
| 19 | Red Hat | Software and Services | 15,138 | 683 | 4.5 | 30.9 | 0.3 | 31.2 |
| 20 | Assurant | Insurance | 5,303 | 508 | 9.6 | 18.1 | 9.8 | 29.7 |
| 21 | AutoZone | Retailing | 22,412 | 2,479 | 11.1 | 30.4 | -1.1 | 29.0 |
| 22 | Lowe’s Cos. | Retailing | 69,585 | 7,830 | 11.3 | 25.6 | 2.6 | 28.9 |
| 23 | The Clorox Co. | Household and Personal Products | 16,373 | 708 | 4.3 | 20.9 | 6.4 | 28.7 |
| 24 | Costco Wholesale Corp. | Food and Staples Retailing | 71,024 | 1,018 | 1.4 | 18.2 | 8.5 | 28.2 |
| 25 | Hasbro | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 8,395 | 547 | 6.5 | 23.3 | 4.0 | 28.2 |
| 26 | UnitedHealth Group | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 112,124 | 5,208 | 4.6 | 29.6 | -1.1 | 28.2 |
| 27 | Cintas Corp. | Commercial and Professional Services | 9,830 | 1,161 | 11.8 | 32.0 | -3.0 | 28.0 |
| 28 | Visa | Software and Services | 188,406 | 8,044 | 4.3 | 24.9 | 2.4 | 27.9 |
| 29 | Microsoft Corp. | Software and Services | 443,169 | 25,893 | 5.8 | 23.7 | 3.2 | 27.7 |
| 30 | Newell Rubbermaid | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 11,778 | 545 | 4.6 | 23.7 | 2.8 | 27.1 |
| 31 | Aetna | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 37,701 | 1,514 | 4.0 | 30.1 | -2.6 | 26.7 |
| 32 | Eli Lilly and Co. | Pharma- ceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 89,368 | 1,550 | 1.7 | 32.7 | -4.5 | 26.7 |
| 33 | The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. | Automobiles and Components | 8,785 | 416 | 4.7 | 22.8 | 2.3 | 25.7 |
| 34 | eBay | Software and Services | 32,994 | 5,150 | 15.6 | 18.4 | 5.5 | 24.9 |
| 35 | Humana | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 26,459 | 1,274 | 4.8 | 34.9 | -7.4 | 24.9 |
| 36 | Mondelez International | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 71,258 | 5,322 | 7.5 | 17.9 | 5.9 | 24.8 |
| 37 | Adobe Systems | Software and Services | 46,857 | 1,225 | 2.6 | 27.5 | -2.1 | 24.8 |
| 38 | McDonald’s Corp. | Consumer Services | 108,480 | 9,298 | 8.6 | 11.6 | 11.6 | 24.6 |
| 39 | Tyson Foods | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 21,108 | 1,018 | 4.8 | 26.7 | -1.8 | 24.4 |
| 40 | Lockheed Martin Corp. | Capital Goods | 66,729 | 4,971 | 7.4 | 30.5 | -4.7 | 24.4 |
| 41 | Avery Dennison Corp. | Materials | 5,708 | 494 | 8.7 | 18.9 | 4.6 | 24.3 |
| 42 | Accenture | Software and Services | 65,617 | 4,949 | 7.5 | 20.9 | 2.8 | 24.3 |
| 43 | H&R Block | Consumer Services | 7,859 | 1,915 | 24.4 | 14.7 | 7.4 | 23.1 |
| 44 | Delta Air Lines | Transportation | 39,866 | 3,300 | 8.3 | 36.9 | -10.2 | 22.9 |
| 45 | Ross Stores | Retailing | 21,793 | 1,358 | 6.2 | 17.8 | 4.2 | 22.7 |
| 46 | Intercontinental Exchange | Diversified Financials | 30,429 | 1,395 | 4.6 | 11.9 | 9.5 | 22.5 |
| 47 | Walgreens Boots Alliance | Food and Staples Retailing | 92,449 | 2,018 | 2.2 | 23.1 | -0.4 | 22.5 |
| 48 | The Walt Disney Co. | Media | 173,716 | 13,256 | 7.6 | 28.7 | -5.1 | 22.2 |
| 49 | Juniper Networks | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 10,650 | 3,416 | 32.1 | 22.1 | -1.2 | 20.7 |
| 50 | The Hartford Financial Services Group | Insurance | 17,802 | 2,245 | 12.6 | 17.4 | 2.4 | 20.3 |
* Company has yet to report latest quarter. Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from December 2013 to December 2015. Includes the 485 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 12/31/2015. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 billion. | ||||||||
