What is Nasdaq Composite's shareholder yield?

About 1.46%: 0.98% from buybacks and 0.48% from dividends.

Do Nasdaq Composite companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?

Yes — $425B of buybacks against $206B of dividends in FY2025.

Why not just look at the dividend yield?

Dividend yield now captures a minority of the cash returned; buybacks are the rest.

Market proxy ONEQ$107.111D +1.14%as of market close, Oct 2, 2026

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Nasdaq Composite shareholder yield: 1.46%

Nasdaq Composite companies returned $653B to shareholders over the last twelve months — $437B buying back their own stock and $216B in dividends. Against their combined $44.75T of market value that is a 0.98% buyback yield and a 0.48% dividend yield: 1.46% of cash returned in total. Buybacks are the larger half, which is why the dividend yield alone understates what owners actually receive.

Total shareholder yield

1.46%

$653B returned

Buyback yield

0.98%

$437B repurchased

Dividend yield

0.48%

$216B paid

Net of issuance

1.30%

less $73B raised

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.

$0B$177B$353B$530B$707B

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BuybacksDividends

Fiscal year	Buybacks	Dividends	Total returned	Net income	Payout ratio
FY2025	$425B	$206B	$631B	$952B	66%
FY2024	$386B	$198B	$584B	$754B	77%
FY2023	$360B	$164B	$524B	$655B	80%
FY2022	$425B	$156B	$581B	$588B	99%
FY2021	$347B	$144B	$491B	$654B	75%
FY2020	$269B	$141B	$410B	$380B	108%
FY2019	$287B	$130B	$417B	$405B	103%
FY2018	$306B	$116B	$422B	$377B	112%
FY2017	$153B	$110B	$262B	$329B	80%
FY2016	$152B	$102B	$254B	$281B	90%
FY2015	$159B	$91B	$250B	$252B	99%
FY2014	$155B	$75B	$230B	$236B	97%

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 Nasdaq Composite's shareholder yield?: About 1.46% — a 0.98% buyback yield plus a 0.48% dividend yield, from 275 members' trailing-twelve-month SEC cash-flow filings against their combined $44.75T market value. Netting off the $73B those companies raised issuing shares takes it to 1.30%.
Do Nasdaq Composite companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?: Yes, and by a widening margin. In FY2025 members spent $425B on repurchases against $206B in dividends. The exception is a downturn, because buybacks are discretionary and get cut first: in FY2017 they fell from $152B to $153B against $110B of dividends, while dividends held at $110B. 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 Nasdaq Composite's 0.48% 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 (275 of 277 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. Not investment advice.

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