24/7 Wall St.

When corporations are profitable and established, they tend to return capital to shareholders. This can be achieved via stock buybacks to shrink the float and to support the stock, or it can be done via one-time dividends or by raising their annualized quarterly dividends. 24/7 Wall St. has covered may top dividend views for 2016. Now it is time to take a look at the 2016 stock buyback kings — companies that will spend the most buying back their common stock this year alone.

Many investors love the cash flow from dividends. After all, dividends can contribute up to 50% of total returns through time. Other investors prefer for companies to buy back their common stock. This can come with a lower effective tax rate for long-term gains, or they feel this can prop up the share price.

When picking out companies that will be buying back the largest number of shares in 2016, several things have to be considered. First and foremost, a company had to be willing to spend billions of dollars to buy its shares. Such companies also have to have a history of conducting stock buybacks, or they had to have a solid reason why they would be so aggressive in buying back stock this year alone.

24/7 Wall St. has screened many companies involved in share buybacks to create the list of companies that likely will repurchase the most shares in 2016. The reality is that investors will not know exactly which companies led the total stock buybacks in 2016 until early in 2017, when the companies disclose more data on their share buyback activities. That being said, these companies are all massive buyers of their own stock.

24/7 Wall St.
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