New Year, New Buybacks: 3 Big-Name Stocks Planning Repurchases

Key Points

• With earnings season in full swing, several well-known stocks have announced new buyback programs.
• In addition to these new buyback programs, all three of these stocks issued earnings reports that sent shares significantly higher.
• Streaming, banking, and aerospace equipment firms are among those that have announced plans to return capital to shareholders.

As the first earnings cycle of 2025 is ramping up, so are the announcements of new share buyback authorizations. Among these announcements, three big-name U.S. stocks stick out so far, all of which also posted impressive Q4 2024 earnings. All return and percentage of market capitalization figures use data as of the Jan. 23 close.

Netflix: Adds Millions of Subscribers, Billions in Buyback Authorization

Along with its earnings report that saw the addition of 19 million subscribers, the largest increase in its history, Netflix NASDAQ: NFLX also announced a sizable share buyback authorization. The repurchase program allows the company to buy back up to $15 billion of its own stock. Netflix now has $17.1 billion in buyback authority at its fingertips, allowing the company to return capital to shareholders strategically. This $17.1 billion authorization represents 4.2% of the company’s value.

This recent buyback program is significantly larger than the $10 billion program Netflix announced in Q3 2023. However, as a percentage of the company’s value, it is significantly smaller. Since that 2023 announcement, shares are up over 184%. Meanwhile, the buyback authorization is only 33% larger.

The company's continued share buybacks, despite a big price rise, may signal that management sees more upside in the company. Netflix's recent subscription price hikes and low churn are encouraging. So are its live sports opportunities and ad revenue growth. All are reasons to be optimistic about the stock.

GE Aerospace: Earnings, Buybacks, and Everything in Between Up in Q4

General Electric NYSE: GE, also known as GE Aerospace, is another hot stock that announced a buyback program as it beat earnings. The company blew past estimates for both sales and adjusted earnings per share (EPS). Revenue increased by 16%, total orders increased by 46%, and the company over doubled its adjusted EPS from Q4 2023. GE Aerospace is one of three stocks that emerged from a corporate restructuring of legacy conglomerate General Electric. The other two are GE HealthCare Technologies NASDAQ: GEHC and GE Vernova NYSE: GEV. GE Aerospace retained the ticker traditionally used by General Electric. It is a key supplier of jet engines to firms like Boeing NYSE: BA and Airbus EPA: AIR.

After returning more than $6 billion to shareholders in 2024, GE Aerospace announced a $6 billion buyback program on Jan. 23. This represents just under 3% of the company’s market capitalization. That wasn’t all the good news in terms of returning capital to shareholders. The company also announced it is increasing its dividend by a hefty 30%. This would bump the company’s annual dividend payments up from $1.12 per share to $1.46 per share. That still only gives the company a dividend yield of 0.7%; however, it is still a nice bump. It gets the company closer to the 1.2% dividend yield of the S&P 500.

Citigroup: Massive Buyback Authorization Combined with Nearly $3 Billion in Profit

Along with also releasing fantastic earnings, Citigroup NYSE: C announced a buyback authorization worth tens of billions. The company’s $20 billion authorization follows its return of $7 billion to shareholders in 2024. The authorization is by far the biggest of these three firms, representing a sizable 13% of the company’s market capitalization. The large size of this dividend program may indicate that the company plans to move away from its historically low buyback activity. Over the last 12 months, ended in Q3, Citigroup spent $2.5 billion on buybacks. This sits massively below the company’s average last-12-month buyback purchasing of $5.5 billion over the past 20 years. Exact buyback figures for Q4 are not yet available.

Markets love what they’ve seen from Citigroup so far this year, with the company’s share price up by 16%. It was one of many bank stocks that had great quarters, helped by a pickup in investment banking activity. The company’s investment banking revenues grew 35%. It also flipped the table on net income. It lost $1.8 billion in the final quarter of 2023, which shifted to a gain of $2.9 billion in Q4 2024. Citigroup is also deep in the process of cutting jobs as it works to become a leaner organization. The company cut 10,000 jobs last year, putting it halfway toward reaching its goal of 20,000 cuts by the end of 2026.