Stock Buyback Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Mia Scarlett | Last updated: October 5, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
S&P 500 companies repurchased a record $1.020 trillion of their own stock in the 12 months to September 2025, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. In the first half of 2026, two of the four biggest buyers, Alphabet and Meta, bought back $0, while their combined capital expenditures reached $129.7 billion.
Note on the $129.7 billion: Alphabet ($80,598 million) plus Meta ($49,113 million) purchases of property and equipment, January to June 2026, from each company’s cash flow statement.
Quick Answer
The last official full tally from S&P Dow Jones Indices puts S&P 500 buybacks at $1.020 trillion for the 12 months to September 2025, a record. In 2026 the story split in two: Apple and NVIDIA kept repurchasing at scale, while Alphabet and Meta stopped entirely to fund AI data centers. According to Axis Intelligence Research, the share of cash these hyperscalers send to capex rather than buybacks jumped from 49.1% to 77.5% in one year.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Capex Crowd-Out Ratio (CCOR) for Alphabet, Meta and NVIDIA combined rose from 49.1% in the first half of 2025 to 77.5% in the first half of 2026, based on company cash flow statements.
- Alphabet and Meta repurchased $0 of stock in the first half of 2026, versus $28,306 million and $22,921 million in the same period of 2025, per their earnings releases.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, Alphabet swung $77.9 billion from net buyer to net issuer in one year: it raised $49.6 billion in new equity in the first half of 2026 after buying back $28.3 billion a year earlier.
- S&P Dow Jones Indices data shows Alphabet and Meta supplied $99,994 million, or 9.8%, of all S&P 500 buybacks in the 12 months to September 2025; Axis Intelligence Research estimates that is the annual buyback demand at risk if both stay out.
- Apple repurchased $62,094 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2026, 9.1 times its capital spending, and cut its share count 1.11%, per its July 30, 2026 filing.
How Much Do Companies Spend on Stock Buybacks?
S&P 500 companies spent $942,550 million on buybacks in calendar 2024, an annual record, and $1,020,268 million in the 12 months to September 2025, according to the S&P Dow Jones Indices Q3 2025 buyback release. Add $664,900 million in dividends and total cash returned to shareholders reached a record $1.685 trillion over the same 12 months.
S&P 500 Buybacks by Year (2018 to 2025)
| Period | S&P 500 buybacks (USD millions) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 806,410 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 2019 | 728,740 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 2020 | 519,760 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 2021 | 881,720 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 2022 | 922,680 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 2023 | 795,160 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 2024 | 942,550 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 12 months to Sep 2024 | 918,398 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| 12 months to Sep 2025 | 1,020,268 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
Quarterly S&P 500 Buybacks, Q4 2024 to Q3 2025
| Quarter | Buybacks (USD millions) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Q4 2024 | 243,240 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Q1 2025 (record) | 293,450 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Q2 2025 | 234,570 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Q3 2025 | 249,004 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
Mia Scarlett’s read: The trillion-dollar figure gets quoted as if it describes the whole market. It does not. In Q3 2025 the top 20 repurchasers wrote 49.5% of the checks, above the 47.8% historical average S&P Dow Jones Indices cites. A buyback total this concentrated is really a handful of treasury departments making the same call. When two of them change their minds, the aggregate moves, and that is exactly what 2026 filings show.
Why Is There No Official Full-Year 2025 Buyback Total?
As of October 5, 2026, the most recent quarterly buyback release in the S&P Global press release archive is dated December 18, 2025, which is 291 days before this page’s data cut. Axis Intelligence Research checked the archive back through October 2025 and found no Q4 2025, Q1 2026 or Q2 2026 buyback release. We have not estimated a calendar 2025 total from secondary sources; the row ships in our CSV as a declined calculation. That gap is why company filings, not index-level summaries, are the primary data layer for 2026 on this page.
Which Companies Buy Back the Most Stock?
Apple remains the largest single repurchaser in the S&P 500. Per S&P Dow Jones Indices, Apple bought back $96,671 million in the 12 months to September 2025, followed by Alphabet ($55,761 million), NVIDIA ($51,753 million) and Meta Platforms ($44,233 million). Those four accounted for $55.2 billion of the $249.0 billion S&P 500 total in Q3 2025 alone.
Largest S&P 500 Buybacks, 12 Months to September 2025
| Company | 12-month buybacks (USD millions) | Q3 2025 buybacks (USD millions) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 96,671 | 20,373 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Alphabet | 55,761 | 11,504 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| NVIDIA | 51,753 | 14,885 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Meta Platforms | 44,233 | 8,462 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| JPMorgan | 27,628 | 8,293 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Microsoft | 19,963 | 5,650 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
Stock Buybacks by Sector
Information technology led every sector with $281,637 million in buybacks over the 12 months to September 2025, 27.6% of the S&P 500 total. Financials followed at $218,578 million, then communication services at $146,145 million.
| Sector | 12-month buybacks to Sep 2025 (USD millions) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Information technology | 281,637 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Financials | 218,578 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Communication services | 146,145 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Industrials | 91,605 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Health care | 89,339 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Consumer discretionary | 68,529 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
| Energy | 59,396 | S&P Dow Jones Indices |
Mia Scarlett’s read: Communication services is the sector to watch in the next S&P release. Alphabet and Meta both sit in it, and their filings now show zero repurchases for two straight quarters. Whatever the sector printed in 2025, its 2026 figure will be carried by companies other than the two that used to define it.
Are Big Tech Companies Still Buying Back Stock in 2026?
Some are, some stopped. The cleanest way to see the split is in the cash flow statements filed for the first half of 2026 (fiscal first half for NVIDIA, fiscal first nine months for Apple).
2026 Buybacks vs. Capex: Company Filings
| Company | Window | Share repurchases (USD millions) | Prior-year repurchases (USD millions) | Capex (USD millions) | Prior-year capex (USD millions) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabet | Jan to Jun 2026 | 0 | 28,306 | 80,598 | 39,643 | Alphabet Q2 2026 8-K |
| Meta | Jan to Jun 2026 | 0 | 22,921 | 49,113 | 29,479 | Meta Q2 2026 release |
| NVIDIA | Feb to Jul 2026 | 39,044 | 23,815 | 4,434 | 3,122 | NVIDIA Q2 FY2027 8-K |
| Apple | Sep 2025 to Jun 2026 | 62,094 | 70,579 | 6,799 | 9,473 | Apple Q3 FY2026 8-K |
Capex is purchases of property and equipment as reported in each cash flow statement (NVIDIA’s line includes intangible assets). Repurchases are cash paid, not shares authorized.
Alphabet Stopped Buying Back Stock and Started Selling It
Alphabet repurchased $0 of stock in Q2 2026, against $13,238 million in Q2 2025, per its Q2 2026 earnings release. In the same quarter it raised $30,499 million from common stock and $19,063 million from mandatory convertible preferred stock. On June 1, 2026, the company announced an $80 billion equity capital raise, including a $40 billion at-the-market program and a $10 billion private placement with Berkshire Hathaway.
Q2 2026 capex of $44,924 million exceeded operating cash flow of $39,069 million, producing free cash flow of negative $5,855 million. Long-term debt rose from $46,547 million at year-end 2025 to $98,165 million at June 30, 2026. Shares outstanding rose from 12,088 million to 12,230 million over the same six months; according to Axis Intelligence Research, that is a 1.17% increase in share count for a company that spent $55,761 million shrinking it in the year to September 2025.
Meta Paused Buybacks for Two Quarters
Meta reported no repurchases of Class A common stock in either Q1 or Q2 2026, compared with $22,921 million in the first half of 2025, per Meta’s Q2 2026 results. Q2 purchases of property and equipment of $30,116 million absorbed 94.5% of the quarter’s $31,862 million operating cash flow, by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation. Free cash flow fell to $784 million from $8,549 million a year earlier. Meta issued $24,910 million of long-term debt in the quarter and guided 2026 capex, including finance lease principal, to $130 billion to $145 billion.
NVIDIA and Apple Kept the Buyback Machine Running
NVIDIA repurchased $39,044 million of stock in the first half of fiscal 2027, up from $23,815 million a year earlier, and returned approximately $26.0 billion to shareholders in Q2 alone, according to its August 26, 2026 results. Dividends paid jumped to $6,047 million in the quarter from $244 million a year earlier, and about $99.0 billion remained under its repurchase authorization.
Apple repurchased $62,094 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2026, down from $70,579 million a year earlier but still 9.1 times its $6,799 million in capital spending, per its July 30, 2026 filing. Its share count fell from 14,773,260 thousand to 14,608,963 thousand between September 27, 2025 and June 27, 2026, a 1.11% reduction.
Mia Scarlett’s read: The dividing line is not “tech versus everyone else.” It is who sells the chips and devices versus who buys the compute. NVIDIA and Apple carry light capex on their own balance sheets, so the cash flows through to shareholders. Alphabet and Meta are the ones pouring concrete and buying racks, and their filings say plainly where the money went. Microsoft sits in the middle: it returned $10.2 billion in its June 2026 quarter while spending $41 billion on capex including finance leases, per its FY2026 Q4 earnings call.
For deeper company-level filings analysis, see our Nvidia statistics page.
The Capex Crowd-Out Ratio (CCOR): Axis Intelligence Research’s Buyback Displacement Metric
The Capex Crowd-Out Ratio (CCOR) measures how much of a company’s discretionary cash deployment goes into physical buildout rather than share repurchases. It is built entirely from cash flow statement lines, so anyone can recompute it from the filings linked above.
Formula: CCOR = Capex ÷ (Capex + Share repurchases), measured over the same reporting window, cash basis.
A CCOR of 100% means every dollar of this pair went to buildout and none to buybacks. A CCOR near 10% means the company is a repurchase machine with light capital needs. The ratio deliberately excludes dividends, which boards treat as a fixed commitment, and focuses on the two flexible uses of cash that compete directly.
CCOR by Company, 2025 vs. 2026
| Company | CCOR, prior-year window | CCOR, 2026 window | Change | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabet | 58.3% | 100.0% | +41.7 pts | Axis calculation from SEC filing |
| Meta | 56.3% | 100.0% | +43.7 pts | Axis calculation from company release |
| NVIDIA | 11.6% | 10.2% | -1.4 pts | Axis calculation from SEC filing |
| Apple (9-month fiscal) | 11.8% | 9.9% | -1.9 pts | Axis calculation from SEC filing |
| Alphabet + Meta + NVIDIA (aggregate) | 49.1% | 77.5% | +28.4 pts | Axis calculation |
Worked example (aggregate, first half 2026): capex $80,598M + $49,113M + $4,434M = $134,145M; repurchases $0 + $0 + $39,044M = $39,044M; CCOR = 134,145 ÷ (134,145 + 39,044) = 77.5%. The same three companies in the first half of 2025: 72,244 ÷ (72,244 + 75,042) = 49.1%.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, aggregate repurchases across the three fell 48.0% year over year while aggregate capex rose 85.7%. Apple is shown separately because its fiscal reporting window covers nine months; the ratio itself is window-neutral, but summing nine-month and six-month dollars would not be.
How to read it: CCOR rising above 50% signals the buildout has become the first claim on cash. CCOR hitting 100% signals the buyback program is fully parked. The metric would reverse if capex guidance falls or operating cash flow grows fast enough to fund both, which is what investors will look for in Q3 2026 filings.
Scope: CCOR covers cash spent, not shares authorized, and ignores the funding source; a company can post a low CCOR while borrowing to buy back stock. Microsoft is not scored because the documents fetched for this page report dividends and repurchases combined. Methodology detail sits in the Methodology section below.
How Much S&P 500 Buyback Demand Is at Risk From the AI Buildout?
According to Axis Intelligence Research, Alphabet and Meta together accounted for $19,966 million, or 8.0%, of all S&P 500 buybacks in Q3 2025, using S&P Dow Jones Indices company figures. Over the 12 months to September 2025 they supplied $99,994 million, or 9.8% of the $1,020,268 million total.
Their 2026 filings show both at zero for two consecutive quarters. Axis Intelligence Research estimates that if both stay out for a full year, roughly $100 billion of annual repurchase demand leaves the S&P 500 unless other companies step up. NVIDIA’s acceleration offsets part of it: its first-half fiscal 2027 repurchases ran $15,229 million above the prior year. (That figure is $39,044M minus $23,815M, from the NVIDIA filing.)
Mia Scarlett’s read: This is the number the earnings calls skip. A buyback program is often described as “support” for a stock; at index level it is also one of the steadiest net buyers of US equities. Losing a tenth of that flow is not a crisis, but it is a structural change in who is bidding for shares, and it showed up in filings before it showed up in any index summary.
Are Companies Borrowing to Fund Buybacks or Capex?
Corporate borrowing in 2026 is funding the buildout. Nonfinancial corporate debt reached $15.7 trillion at the end of Q2 2026, growing at an 8.4% annual rate in Q1 and 5.5% in Q2, according to the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts.
The hyperscaler filings show where that borrowing lands. Alphabet raised $56,226 million in debt in the first half of 2026, Meta $24,910 million in Q2, and NVIDIA $24,896 million in its fiscal Q2. Alphabet and Meta paired new debt with zero buybacks. NVIDIA paired new debt with record capital returns.
Who Owns the Shares Being Retired?
Households held $74.0 trillion in directly and indirectly owned corporate equities at the end of Q2 2026, and those holdings gained $10.7 trillion in value during the quarter, per the Federal Reserve. Buybacks and equity issuance both act on that base: retirements concentrate ownership in remaining holders, while Alphabet-style issuance spreads it.
Do Buybacks Actually Shrink Share Count?
Not always. S&P Dow Jones Indices reports that only 17.1% of S&P 500 companies reduced their diluted share count by at least 4% year over year in Q3 2025, even with 436 companies doing some repurchasing over 12 months. Much buyback spending simply offsets shares issued to employees.
Buybacks vs. Stock-Based Compensation, 2026
| Company | Window | Repurchases (USD millions) | Stock-based comp (USD millions) | Buybacks / SBC | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | Feb to Jul 2026 | 39,044 | 3,954 | 9.9x | SEC filing; Axis calculation |
| Apple | Sep 2025 to Jun 2026 | 62,094 | 10,523 | 5.9x | SEC filing; Axis calculation |
| Alphabet | Jan to Jun 2026 | 0 | 14,708 | 0.0x | SEC filing; Axis calculation |
| Meta | Jan to Jun 2026 | 0 | 13,690 | 0.0x | Company release; Axis calculation |
Mia Scarlett’s read: Stock-based compensation is the footnote that reframes a buyback program. Meta still paid $8,704 million in taxes on net share settlement in the first half of 2026, which limits how many new shares reach the market, but with no open-market repurchases nothing offsets the remainder. Alphabet went further and says its new at-the-market program will mainly fund employee equity tax obligations, roughly $30 billion of it in calendar 2026.
How Does the 1% Buyback Excise Tax Affect Repurchases?
The 1% excise tax on net buybacks, in effect since 2023, cost S&P 500 companies $2,250 million in Q3 2025 and 0.40% of 12-month operating earnings, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. By Axis Intelligence Research’s sum of the four quarters from Q4 2024 to Q3 2025, the tax cost $8,740 million. That is under 1% of the buybacks it taxes, because the base is net of shares issued.
Mia Scarlett’s read: The tax did not change behavior in 2025; capex did in 2026. If you are looking for the policy lever that slowed big-tech buybacks, the cash flow statement points to data center budgets, not the Internal Revenue Code.
What Is the Buyback Yield of the S&P 500?
The S&P 500 buyback yield was 1.79% over the 12 months to September 2025, and the combined dividend plus buyback yield was 2.95%, per S&P Dow Jones Indices. Participation fell to 66.6% of index members in Q3 2025, and 333 companies spent at least $5 million that quarter. For company-specific capital return patterns outside big tech, see our Netflix statistics, Spotify statistics and Reddit statistics pages, and our ByteDance statistics page for how private-company buyback prices differ from public repurchases.
Methodology
Collection. Axis Intelligence Research fetched every figure on this page from primary documents during production on October 5, 2026: S&P Dow Jones Indices’ December 18, 2025 buyback release and press archive; Alphabet, Apple and NVIDIA earnings exhibits filed with the SEC; Meta’s investor relations release; Microsoft’s FY2026 Q4 earnings call; and the Federal Reserve’s September 11, 2026 Z.1 release. Each value is logged with URL and retrieval date in the CSV.
Definitions. Repurchases are cash paid for common stock in the financing section of the cash flow statement. Capex is purchases of property and equipment from the investing section (NVIDIA includes intangible assets in that line). Index-level buyback figures are S&P Dow Jones Indices’ gross values, which can differ from company cash flow figures because of timing and settlement conventions; we do not mix the two inside one calculation.
Formulas. CCOR = Capex ÷ (Capex + Repurchases). Share count change = (ending shares ÷ starting shares) minus 1. Capex to operating cash flow = capex ÷ net cash from operating activities. Every derived row in the CSV carries its arithmetic in the method_note column.
Windows. Alphabet and Meta use calendar quarters. NVIDIA’s fiscal first half runs February to July. Apple’s fiscal year-to-date runs from September; Apple is excluded from aggregate dollar sums for that reason.
Declined calculations. We did not estimate a calendar 2025 S&P 500 total because no primary full-year release was available, and we did not score Microsoft on CCOR because repurchase-only dollars for January to June 2026 were not isolated in the documents fetched. Both appear in the CSV as retracted rows with reasoning.
Scope. This page covers US-listed companies and the S&P 500. It does not cover authorizations announced but unexecuted, private-company tender offers, or non-US buyback markets.
About This Dataset
The dataset behind this page, stock-buyback-statistics-2026.csv, contains 158 rows: S&P 500 buyback totals by quarter, year and sector; company-level repurchases, capex, debt and share counts for Alphabet, Meta, NVIDIA, Apple and Microsoft; Federal Reserve corporate debt and household equity data; and every Axis Intelligence Research calculation, including CCOR. Each row lists source organization, document, URL, retrieval date, a primary-source flag and an Axis-calculated flag.
It is published under CC BY 4.0 and mirrored on Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub. Updates are relevance-driven: a new S&P Dow Jones Indices buyback release, or Q3 2026 filings from Alphabet, Meta, NVIDIA or Apple, triggers a revision.
Cite this page:
- APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Scarlett, M. (2026, October 5). Stock buyback statistics 2026: How AI capex is squeezing the $1 trillion buyback machine. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/stock-buyback-statistics/
- MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Mia Scarlett. “Stock Buyback Statistics 2026: How AI Capex Is Squeezing the $1 Trillion Buyback Machine.” Axis Intelligence, 5 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/stock-buyback-statistics/.
- Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research, and Mia Scarlett. “Stock Buyback Statistics 2026: How AI Capex Is Squeezing the $1 Trillion Buyback Machine.” Axis Intelligence, October 5, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/stock-buyback-statistics/.
Stock Buyback Questions Investors Are Asking in 2026
Why did Alphabet stop buying back its stock in 2026?
Alphabet repurchased no stock in Q1 or Q2 2026 while capex doubled to $44,924 million in Q2, exceeding operating cash flow. The company instead raised $49.6 billion in equity and announced an $80 billion raise to fund AI infrastructure, per its SEC filings.
Did Meta suspend its share buyback program?
Meta reported $0 in Class A repurchases for the first half of 2026, versus $22,921 million a year earlier. Its filings do not describe a formal suspension; the cash went to $49,113 million of capex and the company added $24,910 million in long-term debt in Q2.
Which company spends the most on stock buybacks?
Apple. It repurchased $96,671 million in the 12 months to September 2025, the most of any S&P 500 company per S&P Dow Jones Indices, and $62,094 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2026.
Is NVIDIA increasing its buybacks?
Yes. NVIDIA repurchased $39,044 million in the first half of fiscal 2027, up from $23,815 million a year earlier, raised its quarterly dividend sharply and kept about $99.0 billion of repurchase authorization, per its August 26, 2026 filing.
What is the Capex Crowd-Out Ratio (CCOR)?
CCOR is an Axis Intelligence Research metric equal to capex divided by capex plus share repurchases. For Alphabet, Meta and NVIDIA combined it rose from 49.1% in the first half of 2025 to 77.5% in the first half of 2026.
Do stock buybacks reduce share count?
Only when repurchases exceed shares issued. Just 17.1% of S&P 500 companies cut diluted shares by 4% or more year over year in Q3 2025. Alphabet’s share count rose 1.17% in the first half of 2026 after it stopped buying.
How much does the 1% buyback tax cost companies?
S&P Dow Jones Indices estimates the tax cost S&P 500 companies $2,250 million in Q3 2025, about 0.40% of 12-month operating earnings. Axis Intelligence Research sums $8,740 million across the four quarters to September 2025.
Where is the latest S&P 500 buyback total for 2025?
As of October 5, 2026, the latest quarterly release in S&P Global’s press archive covers Q3 2025 ($249,004 million; $1.020 trillion over 12 months). No full-year 2025 release appears there, so this page uses company filings for 2026 data.