What is Russell 1000's shareholder yield?

About 2.47%: 1.48% from buybacks and 0.99% from dividends.

Do Russell 1000 companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?

Yes — $939B of buybacks against $680B 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 IWB$420.211D +0.78%as of market close, Oct 2, 2026

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Dividend yield Buyback yield Shareholder yield

Russell 1000 shareholder yield: 2.47%

Russell 1000 companies returned $1.79T to shareholders over the last twelve months — $1.07T buying back their own stock and $716B in dividends. Against their combined $72.38T of market value that is a 1.48% buyback yield and a 0.99% dividend yield: 2.47% 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

2.47%

$1.79T returned

Buyback yield

1.48%

$1.07T repurchased

Dividend yield

0.99%

$716B paid

Net of issuance

2.27%

less $142B 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$453B$906B$1.4T$1.8T

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BuybacksDividends

Fiscal year	Buybacks	Dividends	Total returned	Net income	Payout ratio
FY2025	$939B	$680B	$1.62T	$2.10T	77%
FY2024	$844B	$644B	$1.49T	$1.88T	79%
FY2023	$767B	$605B	$1.37T	$1.73T	79%
FY2022	$903B	$568B	$1.47T	$1.55T	95%
FY2021	$733B	$515B	$1.25T	$1.77T	71%
FY2020	$490B	$478B	$968B	$827B	117%
FY2019	$709B	$480B	$1.19T	$1.21T	99%
FY2018	$703B	$443B	$1.15T	$1.09T	105%
FY2017	$472B	$421B	$894B	$998B	90%
FY2016	$469B	$383B	$851B	$858B	99%
FY2015	$470B	$357B	$827B	$777B	106%
FY2014	$459B	$322B	$781B	$847B	92%

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 Russell 1000's shareholder yield?: About 2.47% — a 1.48% buyback yield plus a 0.99% dividend yield, from 726 members' trailing-twelve-month SEC cash-flow filings against their combined $72.38T market value. Netting off the $142B those companies raised issuing shares takes it to 2.27%.
Do Russell 1000 companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?: Yes, and by a widening margin. In FY2025 members spent $939B on repurchases against $680B in dividends. The exception is a downturn, because buybacks are discretionary and get cut first: in FY2020 they fell from $709B to $490B, roughly level with that year's $478B of dividends, while dividends held at $478B. 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 Russell 1000's 0.99% 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 (726 of 727 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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