About
A clear view of where companies send their cash
buybacks.guru is an independent information site about share repurchases. It exists because the headline number in a buyback press release tells you almost nothing, and the numbers that matter were scattered across filings.
Share repurchases are now the largest way listed companies return cash to their owners, bigger than dividends in the United States and growing fast in Europe. They are also the least understood. A dividend arrives in your account. A buyback changes what you own without telling you.
We built this site to make buybacks legible: who is buying, how much relative to their size, whether the share count is actually falling, and whether the cash came from profits or from borrowing. The rankings put every company on the same footing. The guides explain what the numbers mean and, just as important, when they mislead.
The site is made by the team behind YourFi and VrijVermogen, two financial-independence planners. Buybacks are one of the many things that quietly compound in a long-term portfolio, and we wanted a place that treats them seriously. More tools will follow.
Methodology
- Data source
- Company fundamentals come from companies financial reports, which standardises the cash-flow statement, balance sheet and share counts from company filings. We store the figures as reported and do not adjust them.
- Repurchases
- The cash-flow line for purchases of own shares, with the sign flipped so that a positive number means cash spent buying back. For most companies this is the gross amount. Some filers report it net of shares issued, which is why a quarter can show a negative value (net issuance). We label those rather than hide them.
- Latest twelve months
- The sum of the latest four reported quarters, used only when all four are available, non-negative and the most recent one ended within about seven months. Otherwise we fall back to the latest fiscal year and say so with an FY label. Companies whose latest period is more than a year old carry an 'older filing' badge.
- Buyback yield
- Twelve-month repurchases divided by current market capitalisation, both converted to US dollars. Dividend yield is computed the same way from cash dividends paid, so the two are comparable; it can differ from a quoted forward yield.
- Currency
- Companies report in their own currency (Shell in dollars, Unilever in euros, BP in dollars with a sterling listing). Company pages show figures in the reporting currency. Rankings convert to US dollars at a spot rate captured when the dataset was built, shown on the home page.
- Share count change
- Annual shares outstanding as reported, latest value against the value roughly five years earlier. Treasury-share treatment differs between companies, so compare trends rather than absolute counts across borders.
- Universe
- Large listed companies in the United States, the Netherlands and the rest of Europe chosen for the size of their repurchase programmes, plus a few well-known names that have stopped buying back for contrast. The list grows over time. Nothing here is a recommendation.
- Refresh
- The dataset is rebuilt from the provider's API with a script in the repository. The generation date is printed on the home page and in the rankings footnote.
Disclaimer
Nothing on buybacks.guru is investment, tax or legal advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures may contain errors or lag the latest filings. Always read the source filing and consider your own situation, ideally with a qualified adviser, before acting.