The Biggest Buybacks of (a Big) Year

Well at least companies are putting their massive piles of cash to some sort of use.

My old editor Jon Burton at MarketWatch has a great piece up today looking at the 10 largest share buyback�authorizations�of 2013. Here’s Jon:

Corporate share-buyback authorizations this year through March totaled an estimated $208 billion, according to research firm Birinyi Associates. That marked the strongest first quarter since Birinyi began recording buyback data in 1985.

The first quarter was the fourth-largest in dollar terms, trailing the second-, third- and fourth quarters of 2007. At the current pace, 2013 would see $833 billion of authorizations versus $477 billion in 2012 and second only to 2007�s $863 billion of buyback activity.

The financial sector led with 78 authorizations worth $43.4 billion, while industrials had the largest amount in dollar terms, at $44 billion.

The leader in both dollar terms and as a percentage of float is Home Depot (HD), which has authorized $17 billion of buybacks amounting to close to 18% of shares outstanding. Other notable authorizations are United Parcel Service (UPS), $10 billion or about 17% of shares outstanding, PepsiCo (PEP), $10 billion or 9% of shares outstanding, and American Express (AXP), which has authorized $9.9 billion of buybacks, which is nearly 14% of its shares outstanding. Head over to the story to see the full top 10.