Nasdaq-100
IndexNasdaq-100 shareholder yield: 1.37%
Nasdaq-100 companies returned $522B to shareholders over the last twelve months — $353B buying back their own stock and $169B in dividends. Against their combined $38.19T of market value that is a 0.93% buyback yield and a 0.44% dividend yield: 1.37% of cash returned in total. Buybacks are the larger half, which is why the dividend yield alone understates what owners actually receive.
Cash returned by fiscal year#
Dollars, not yields — a yield series would need each year's market value, and re-rating would then drive the line as much as company behaviour does. Dividends sit on the bottom because they are the sticky leg; the buyback band on top is the one that moves.
| Fiscal year | Buybacks | Dividends | Total returned | Net income | Payout ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $371B | $164B | $536B | $852B | 63% |
| FY2024 | $349B | $161B | $510B | $660B | 77% |
| FY2023 | $332B | $128B | $460B | $573B | 80% |
| FY2022 | $388B | $123B | $511B | $505B | 101% |
| FY2021 | $313B | $116B | $429B | $547B | 78% |
| FY2020 | $241B | $106B | $347B | $357B | 97% |
| FY2019 | $250B | $103B | $353B | $344B | 103% |
| FY2018 | $269B | $90B | $359B | $304B | 118% |
| FY2017 | $129B | $87B | $216B | $269B | 80% |
| FY2016 | $125B | $79B | $203B | $230B | 89% |
| FY2015 | $130B | $71B | $201B | $225B | 89% |
| FY2014 | $125B | $59B | $184B | $203B | 91% |
Summed over today's members by the calendar year of each company's fiscal year-end, as filed. Payout ratio is buybacks plus dividends over net income — above 100% means members returned more than they earned that year, funded from cash or borrowing. Composition changes as membership does, so the earliest years cover slightly fewer companies.
FAQ
- What is the Nasdaq-100's shareholder yield?
- About 1.37% — a 0.93% buyback yield plus a 0.44% dividend yield, from 88 members' trailing-twelve-month SEC cash-flow filings against their combined $38.19T market value. Netting off the $42B those companies raised issuing shares takes it to 1.26%.
- Do Nasdaq-100 companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?
- Yes, and by a widening margin. In FY2025 members spent $371B on repurchases against $164B in dividends. The exception is a downturn, because buybacks are discretionary and get cut first: in FY2017 they fell from $125B to $129B against $87B of dividends, while dividends held at $87B. Boards will suspend a repurchase long before they will cut a payout.
- Why not just look at the dividend yield?
- Because it now describes a minority of the cash. A company repurchasing 3% of its shares has returned cash as surely as one paying a 3% dividend, but only the second shows up in a yield figure — which is why the Nasdaq-100's 0.44% dividend yield looks so meagre against its own history while total cash returned does not.
Notes & related#
Figures come from members' own SEC cash-flow statements via our EDGAR pipeline (88 of 89 members with a market value), summed and divided by their combined market capitalisation — the cash definition of shareholder yield, which is what index providers publish. Elsewhere on this site we use a different one. Per-company pages and the shareholder yield list report a realized yield — the shares a company actually retired — because cash over market value flatters a business whose stock fell after it spent the money. That objection doesn't carry to an index aggregate, where no single member's re-rating moves the total and per-member share counts are muddied by index turnover and takeovers. Different question, different convention.
Buyback figures are gross repurchases; the “net of issuance” card subtracts cash raised issuing shares, which is not the same as offsetting stock compensation. See also dividend yield and aggregate earnings. Not investment advice.
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