COUNTERPOINT · 2000—2023 — Total U.S. Equity Issuance and Retirement: The Net Capital Return Era
Issuance, Dilution & Buybacks — Impact of stock-based compensation (SBC), net share issuance, and share repurchases on per-share economic value.
The plate
From 2000 through 2023, U.S. public companies issued $9.7T in equity and retired $14.0T through repurchases and buyouts, generating $4.3T in net capital returns. Stock-based compensation rose from 0.2% to 1.3% of sales.
What this page answers
This static page is built to answer searches for COUNTERPOINT · 2000—2023. It summarizes the live dataset behind the Total U.S. Equity Issuance and Retirement: The Net Capital Return Era panel and links to the full interactive chart.
From 2000 through 2023, U.S. public companies issued $9.7T in equity and retired $14.0T through repurchases and buyouts, generating $4.3T in net capital returns. Stock-based compensation rose from 0.2% to 1.3% of sales. The data is refreshed by the History of Market pipeline and published as a stable JSON endpoint for research, citation, and AI-agent use.
Data & Source
Exchange closing prices · Company filings · Robert Shiller · FRED · NBER.
FAQ
Where does this data come from?
History of Market combines public market and macro datasets — exchange closing prices, company filings, Robert Shiller, FRED, NBER, and the UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook (Dimson–Marsh–Staunton). The exact endpoint for this panel is linked below.
How often is it updated?
Daily-tier datasets refresh after the U.S. market close, with a broader weekly refresh on Sunday. The timestamp shown on this page comes from the JSON payload.
Can I use the data?
Yes, for research and education with attribution to History of Market. Upstream data sources retain their own terms.