As the first earnings cycle of 2025 approaches, so do announcements of new share buyback rights. Among these announcements, three big-name US stocks stand out so far, all of which also posted impressive Q4 2024 earnings. All returns and percentage of market capitalization figures use data as of the end of January 23.
Netflix: Adds Millions of Subscribers, Billions in Buyback Authorization
Netflix today
01/24/2025 to 04:00 PM Eastern
- 52-week range
- $542.01
▼
$999.00
- P/E ratio
- 49.30
- Price target
- $1,021.70
With its earnings report adding 19 million subscribers, the largest increase in its history, Netflix NASDAQ: NFLX also announced a massive share buyback right. 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, allowing the company to strategically return capital to shareholders. This $17.1 billion right represents 4.2% of the company’s value.
This is significantly larger than the recent buyback program $10 billion program Netflix announced in Q3 2023. However, as a percentage of the company’s value, it is quite small. Since that 2023 announcement, shares are up 184%. Meanwhile, the buyback right is only 33% larger.
Netflix, Inc. for Monday, January 27, 2025 (NFLX) price chart
A company’s continued share buybacks despite large price increases may indicate that management sees more upside in the company. Netflix’s recent subscription price hikes and low churn are encouraging. It also has live sports opportunities and advertising revenue growth. All have reasons to be optimistic about the stock.
GE Aerospace: Q4 earnings, buybacks, and everything in between
General Electric today
- 52-week range
- $103.75
▼
$207.65
- Dividend yield
- 0.57%
- P/E ratio
- 34.59
- Price target
- $205.80
General Electric NYSE: GEGE Aerospace, also known as GE, 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 16%Total orders grew 46%, and the company doubled its adjusted EPS from Q4 2023. GE Aerospace is one of three stocks that emerged from the 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 the main supplier of jet engines to firms like Boeing NYSE: BA And airbus EPA: AIR.
General Electric (GE) price chart for Monday, January 27, 2025
After returning more than $6 billion to shareholders in 2024, GE Aerospace announced a $6 billion buyback program on Jan. 23. This represents just less than 3% of the company’s market capitalization. It was not all good news in terms of returning capital to shareholders. The company also announced that it is increasing its dividend to 30%. This will increase the company’s annual dividend payout to $1.46 per share from $1.12 per share. This still gives the company a dividend yield of just 0.7%; However, it’s still a nice bump. That puts the company close to the S&P 500’s 1.2% dividend yield.
Citigroup: Huge buyback rights with profits of nearly $3 billion
Citigroup Today
- 52-week range
- $52.24
▼
$82.77
- Dividend yield
- 2.75%
- P/E ratio
- 13.68
- Price target
- $83.93
With outstanding earnings release, Citigroup NYSE: c announced a buyback right worth billions. The company’s $20 billion right comes after $7 billion is returned to shareholders in 2024. This holding is by far the largest among these three firms, representing a whopping 13% of the company’s market capitalization. The large size of this dividend program could signal that the company plans to move away from its historically low buyback activity. In the last 12 months, ending in Q3, Citigroup spent $2.5 billion on buybacks. That’s well below the company’s trailing 12-month average buyback purchases of $5.5 billion over the past 20 years. Exact buyback figures for Q4 are not yet available.
Citigroup Inc. (C) Price chart for Monday, January, 27, 2025
Markets like what they’ve seen from Citigroup so far this year, with the company’s share price up 16%. It was one of many Bank stock which had good quarters, helped by a pickup in investment banking activity. The company’s investment banking revenue grew by 35%. It also changed the table on net income. It lost $1.8 billion in the last quarter of 2023, which changed A profit 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 to reaching its goal 20,000 cuts by the end of 2026.
Before you consider Netflix, you might want to hear this.
MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street’s top-rated and best-performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified Five stocks That top analysts are quietly telling their clients to buy now before the broader market hits… and Netflix wasn’t on the list.
While Netflix currently has a “medium buy” rating among analysts, top analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.
Trying to avoid the hassle of mud, volatility and uncertainty? You would need to be out of the market, which is not practical. So where should investors put their money? Find out with this report.
