Cash from (Repurchase of) Equity

Category

Cash Flow

Units

Currency

Formula

Increase in Capital Stock − Decrease in Capital Stock

US-GAAP elements

ProceedsFromIssuanceOrSaleOfEquityPaymentsForRepurchaseOfEquity

Reference

ASC 230, Statement of Cash Flows (financing activities)

Source

Reported in SEC EDGAR filings (US-GAAP XBRL taxonomy)

Cash from (repurchase of) equity is the net cash a company raised from, or returned to, shareholders through transactions in its own stock during a period. It equals cash received from issuing shares, including employee option exercises, minus cash paid to buy back shares. A positive value means the company was a net issuer of equity; a negative value, shown in parentheses, means it was a net repurchaser.

It does not include dividends, which are a separate financing outflow.

Most companies report issuance and repurchase on separate lines in the financing section, as ASC 230 generally requires, so this figure is usually calculated from figures reported in SEC filings. The inputs are typically tagged ProceedsFromIssuanceOrSaleOfEquity or ProceedsFromIssuanceOfCommonStock on the inflow side and PaymentsForRepurchaseOfEquity or PaymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock on the outflow side. Preferred stock issuance and redemption are usually part of the calculation as well.

The netting has a practical purpose. Many companies issue shares every quarter through employee plans while buying back shares in the market, and the gross figures on their own can overstate both activities. The net figure shows the direction of the company's equity financing. Some items can sit on either side depending on the filer: cash paid for shares withheld to cover employee taxes on vesting awards is a financing outflow that some companies fold into repurchases and others report separately. Stock issued without cash, for example in an acquisition, never enters this figure.

Analysts use net equity issuance as a capital allocation signal. Steady net repurchases funded by free cash flow suggest a mature company returning surplus capital. Persistent net issuance suggests reliance on equity markets for funding, or heavy option exercises. Combined with dividends, the net repurchase amount is the main input to shareholder yield measures, which express total cash returned to shareholders as a share of market value.