S&P 500
IndexS&P 500 shareholder yield: 2.45%
S&P 500 companies returned $1.68T to shareholders over the last twelve months — $967B buying back their own stock and $709B in dividends. Against their combined $68.33T of market value that is a 1.42% buyback yield and a 1.04% dividend yield: 2.45% 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 | $920B | $681B | $1.60T | $2.08T | 77% |
| FY2024 | $836B | $651B | $1.49T | $1.85T | 80% |
| FY2023 | $767B | $609B | $1.38T | $1.74T | 79% |
| FY2022 | $901B | $574B | $1.48T | $1.57T | 94% |
| FY2021 | $725B | $523B | $1.25T | $1.74T | 72% |
| FY2020 | $486B | $490B | $976B | $814B | 120% |
| FY2019 | $710B | $490B | $1.20T | $1.20T | 100% |
| FY2018 | $699B | $452B | $1.15T | $1.08T | 106% |
| FY2017 | $474B | $432B | $906B | $985B | 92% |
| FY2016 | $457B | $395B | $852B | $841B | 101% |
| FY2015 | $456B | $360B | $817B | $780B | 105% |
| FY2014 | $455B | $325B | $779B | $854B | 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 S&P 500's shareholder yield?
- About 2.45% — a 1.42% buyback yield plus a 1.04% dividend yield, from 486 members' trailing-twelve-month SEC cash-flow filings against their combined $68.33T market value. Netting off the $66B those companies raised issuing shares takes it to 2.36%.
- Do S&P 500 companies buy back more stock than they pay in dividends?
- Yes, and by a widening margin. In FY2025 members spent $920B on repurchases against $681B in dividends. The exception is a downturn, because buybacks are discretionary and get cut first: in FY2020 they fell from $710B to $486B, roughly level with that year's $490B 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 the S&P 500's 1.04% 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 (486 of 487 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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