Nvidia's big stock buyback announcement helped boost its shares, but it's one of only two companies in the Magnificent Seven with a large stock repurchase program in place. The other one is Apple, while the other tech giants don't have free cash flow for large capital returns.
Nvidia said Monday that it would boost its repurchase authorization by $150 billion to $235 billion and complete the program by the end of its fiscal year ending in January 2028.
Nvidia has the largest buyback program in the stock market and it accounts for about 4% of its market value-meaningful but not a big percentage with buyback kings retiring about 10% of their shares. Nvidia shares were up 1% Monday and are 0.6% higher Tuesday at $230.13.
Alphabet and Meta Platforms, once large repurchasers of their stock, haven't bought back stock since the second half of 2025 as they fund massive capital spending programs for their artificial intelligence buildouts. That isn't likely to change in 2027.
Not long ago, Alphabet and Meta were prized for their "capital light" business models that produced large amounts of free cash flow that could be returned to shareholders while cyclical, capital-intensive chips makers didn't buy back much stocks. Alphabet bought back $45 billion of stock in 2025 and Meta repurchased $26 billion last year with the bulk coming in the first half of the year.
Now things have flipped as Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle and others spend heavily on data centers and AI, while chip leader Nvidia and other semiconductor makers are a beneficiary of all that spending and are in a position to repurchase stock.
Outside of Nvidia and Apple, capital returns aren't large at any of the Mag Seven stocks-both dividends and buybacks. Microsoft repurchased $22 billion of stock in its fiscal year ended in June-or well under 1% of its current market value of $3.8 trillion.
Amazon hasn't ever been a big share repurchaser and it hasn't bought back any shares since the second quarter of 2022. Tesla has never repurchased shares as it prioritizes investments in robotics, fully autonomous driving, robo-taxis and its automotive business.
Before Nvidia, Apple had been king of repurchases but its buyback program hasn't expanded as its market value has risen in recent years. Apple repurchased about $62 billion of stock in the first three quarters of its fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and is on track to buy back about $80 billion for the full year.
That would be less than the $85 billion in its fiscal 2025 and less than the $90 billion in its fiscal 2022. An $80 billion buyback would represent under 2% of Apple's market value of $5 trillion.
None of the Mag 7 pay large dividends. Microsoft has the highest dividend at 0.8% while Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia and Meta pay under 0.5% and Tesla and Amazon, zero.
Over time, it's the growth in earnings and investor perceptions about competitive positions and outlooks that drives stocks. Amazon and Tesla have generated phenomenal long-term returns despite little or no stock buybacks or dividends.
But capital returns do matter. The variance in capital returns among the Mag 7 could be affecting their stocks this year.
It's notable that the two top stocks in the group with returns of more than 20% so far in 2026 are the ones returning the most: Apple and Nvidia. Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft stocks have single-digit percentage gains so far this year, while Tesla is down 20% this year.
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