A basket of companies that consistently buy back shares is outperforming the broader market, according to Goldman Sachs. So-called “buyback aristocrats” are companies that have reduced their share counts by 1% or more annually in at least nine of the past ten years, David Kostin, Goldman’s chief U.S. equity strategist, said in a note Friday. “An equal-weight portfolio of Buyback Aristocrats, reconstituted and rebalanced annually, has outperformed the equal-weight S & P 500 by an annualized average of 3 [percentage points] since 2012 and by 4 pp YTD,” he wrote. Like dividends, share repurchases allow companies to return profits to stockholders. They can also imply management confidence in the valuation of a stock, and its performance. On Tuesday, EPAM Systems was the latest company to authorize a buyback , saying it would repurchase up to $1 billion of outstanding shares. Other notable buybacks announced this year include Apple , which authorized the repurchase up to $100 billion of the company’s stock, and AMD , which released a $6 billion buyback plan . Still, buybacks — which have become a more common way to return money to shareholders than dividends — have lost ground to capital spending in recent years, Kostin said. In 2021 and 2022, share repurchases exceeded capex, but not since the widespread advent of artificial intelligence investment starting in late 2022, he said. For 2026, Kostin is forecasting 11% growth in S & P 500 companies’ cash spending, totaling $4 trillion, thanks to artificial intelligence-related capital expenditures and an improving macroeconomic backdrop. Some 50% of that spending will be allocated to capex and research and development, while 43% will go to buybacks and dividends, he said. About 7% is earmarked for cash mergers and acquisitions activity, he noted. That said, this is a time of year when buybacks may pick up, Goldman’s trading desk wrote in a separate note Tuesday. It expects the current blackout period — when companies refrain from buybacks around earnings reports — to end on Friday, with about 40% of companies able to resume buybacks subsequently. “We typically see Q4 is more active on our desk with corporates usually looking to hit year end buyback goals,” the note said. With that in mind, here are some of the names in Kostin’s buyback aristocrats basket. Expedia is a new addition to the buyback aristocrats basket. The online travel company has a trailing 12-month yield buyback of 11%. In August, Expedia’s second-quarter earnings and revenue topped Wall Street’s expectations . The company also announced it repurchased approximately 5.6 million shares for $957 million in the first half of the year. It is expected to announce third-quarter financial results next month. Shares have gained 22% year to date. Meanwhile, Citigroup recently posted an earnings beat for its third quarter. While the results sent shares higher, the stock took a hit late last week as banks tumbled amid concerns about loans. Still, shares are nearly 40% higher so far this year. C YTD mountain Citigroup year to date Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo is among those bullish on Citi, calling it his “dominant #1 pick.” “Citigroup (rated Overweight) is, in our view, in the mid-stages of resolving its regulatory consent order regarding the need to modernize systems (data, controls, compliance, risk),” he wrote in a note last week. “Earnings inflected in late 2024, and we expect these positive trends to accelerate in 2025E through 2027E, assuming successful execution of its multi-year restructuring and modest economic expansion.” Citi returned about $6.1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to $12 billion, the bank said last week. Citi has a trailing 12-month buyback yield of 11%. Lastly, 3M posted third-quarter results on Tuesday that also exceeded expectations, sending the stock to a 52-week high. The maker of Post-it sticky notes, up 7% in late day trading, also said it returned $900 million to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in the latest quarter. 3M has a trailing 12-month buyback yield of 6%. Shares have added 29% year to date. (Learn the best 2026 strategies from inside the NYSE with Josh Brown and others at CNBC PRO Live. Tickets and info here .)
