What is S&P 500 Equal Weight's shareholder yield?

About 2.50%: 1.48% from buybacks and 1.02% from dividends.

Do S&P 500 Equal Weight companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?

Yes — $904B of buybacks against $662B 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 RSP$209.731D +0.35%as of market close, Oct 2, 2026

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S&P 500 Equal Weight shareholder yield: 2.50%

S&P 500 Equal Weight companies returned $1.72T to shareholders over the last twelve months — $1.02T buying back their own stock and $699B in dividends. Against their combined $68.51T of market value that is a 1.48% buyback yield and a 1.02% dividend yield: 2.50% 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

2.50%

$1.72T returned

Buyback yield

1.48%

$1.02T repurchased

Dividend yield

1.02%

$699B paid

Net of issuance

2.37%

less $92B 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$439B$877B$1.3T$1.8T

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BuybacksDividends

Fiscal year	Buybacks	Dividends	Total returned	Net income	Payout ratio
FY2025	$904B	$662B	$1.57T	$2.05T	76%
FY2024	$821B	$632B	$1.45T	$1.82T	80%
FY2023	$758B	$593B	$1.35T	$1.71T	79%
FY2022	$891B	$559B	$1.45T	$1.52T	95%
FY2021	$733B	$510B	$1.24T	$1.74T	72%
FY2020	$492B	$477B	$969B	$847B	114%
FY2019	$715B	$477B	$1.19T	$1.21T	99%
FY2018	$706B	$441B	$1.15T	$1.09T	106%
FY2017	$477B	$422B	$899B	$986B	91%
FY2016	$469B	$382B	$852B	$854B	100%
FY2015	$469B	$354B	$823B	$775B	106%
FY2014	$469B	$319B	$788B	$843B	94%

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 S&P 500 Equal Weight's shareholder yield?: About 2.50% — a 1.48% buyback yield plus a 1.02% dividend yield, from 492 members' trailing-twelve-month SEC cash-flow filings against their combined $68.51T market value. Netting off the $92B those companies raised issuing shares takes it to 2.37%.
Do S&P 500 Equal Weight companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?: Yes, and by a widening margin. In FY2025 members spent $904B on repurchases against $662B in dividends. The exception is a downturn, because buybacks are discretionary and get cut first: in FY2020 they fell from $715B to $492B, roughly level with that year's $477B of dividends, while dividends did not move at all. 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 S&P 500 Equal Weight's 1.02% 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 (492 of 492 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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