2013 buybacks for S&P 500 companies grow nearly 25% year-over-year

Aggregate share buybacks showed no sequential growth in Q4, but grew 28.5% year-over-year to a level of $126.0 billion. Overall, S&P 500 companies have been more active during the trailing year than in any period since the financial crisis. The 2013 sum of $477.6 billion advanced 23.6% over the 2012 amount, and was the highest trailing twelve-month (“TTM”) total since Q2 2008 ($526.9 billion).

At the top of the index, IBM and Apple bought back shares amounting to $6.0 billion and $5.1 billion in Q4. Despite having not repurchased shares in the first quarter, Apple’s 2013 repurchases of $26.8 billion were the largest in the index by more than a 60% margin. However, Apple’s 2013 activity is not the largest trailing twelve-month tally of all time. Exxon Mobil repurchased $35.7 billion in 2008 (33% more than Apple did in 2013) and $31.8 billion in 2007. Exxon has since reduced its repurchases from an average of over $8 billion in 2007 and 2008 to $3.3 billion in Q4 2013.

Other overzealous buyers of their own stock in the peak year of 2007 included Microsoft ($20.5 billion), IBM ($18.4 billion), General Electric ($14.8 billion), and Hewlett-Packard ($12.1 billion). The total amount repurchased by this top five was more than the total for the top five companies by buybacks in 2013, but the entire index was also marked by higher repurchase activity in 2007 (averaged $765 million higher than 2013 on a per-company basis).