Share repurchase: what 10-Q repurchase tables show and what CFOs said about buybacks

A share repurchase shows up in three places in a company's filings: a monthly table in Part II, Item 2 of every 10-Q and in the 10-K, required by Item 703 of Regulation S-K; a line in the financing section of the cash flow statement; and the shareholders' equity statement, where the shares bought leave the count. Of the 76 companies behind CFO Voice's quotes, 53 latest 10-Qs print the Item 703 table, and 36 of those show purchases in all three months of the quarter.

The table is the only one of the three that is monthly, and the only one that says how much of a buyback program is left. The cash flow line gives the dollars. The equity statement gives the share count. Read together they describe the same buyback in three units.

What a share repurchase is, in the filings' words

The filings call it a purchase of equity securities by the issuer. The company purchases its own shares, usually on the open market and sometimes through an accelerated share repurchase with a bank or a tender offer, and the shares are either retired or held as treasury stock. Board authorizations are usually stated in dollars, sometimes in shares, and many carry no end date: 22 of the 66 Item 2 sections read here say the program has no expiration.

Item 703 counts more than the program. Its instruction to the first column asks for all issuer repurchases, including those not made under a publicly announced plan, and a footnote saying what they were. The most common is shares withheld from employees to cover taxes when restricted stock vests. Of the 66 sections, 20 mention shares withheld for employee taxes, which is why column (a) and column (c) of a table often differ by a few thousand shares.

Allstate's table for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 shows the arithmetic. Column (a) totals 4,943,025 shares and column (c), the shares bought under its programs, 4,940,050. The difference is 2,975 shares. Footnote (1) lists the shares Allstate acquired from employees in satisfaction of withholding taxes and option exercise prices, month by month: 455 in July, 363 in August and 2,157 in September, which add up to the same 2,975. The two columns and the footnote reconcile exactly, and a reader can check them without any other document.

The 10-Q table, month by month

The table has four columns and a row for each month of the quarter, plus a total. Item 703 prints it in the 2025 Code of Federal Regulations as: total number of shares purchased, average price paid per share, shares purchased as part of publicly announced plans or programs, and the maximum number or approximate dollar value that may yet be purchased under them. The rows read "Month #1", "Month #2" and "Month #3", each identified by its beginning and ending dates.

Constellation Energy's 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 prints it this way:

Period Total Number of Shares Purchased¹ (a) Average Price Paid per Share² Approximate Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Programs³ (b) July 1, 2026 to July 31, 2026⁴ (c) 1,006,731 $ 248.33 $ 2,772

1. 1Column (a): every share the company bought in the month, under the program or not.
2. 2Column (b): the average across the month's purchases, as reported. It is not a market price for any day.
3. 3Column (d): what is left of the authorization at month end, here in millions of dollars.
4. 4Month #1, identified by its first and last day.

Constellation's three rows add up to its total: 1,006,731 shares in July, 2,065,963 in August and 719,314 in September, 3,792,008 in all, at an average of $248.33, $277.09 and $288.52 a share, $271.62 for the quarter. The remaining authorization fell from $2,772 million at the end of July to $2,200 million and then $1,992 million. Column (c) is missing from this table because, as its footnote (a) says, the company made no purchases other than under the program.

That is the table at its simplest. Variants are common. Apple splits each month between an accelerated share repurchase and open market purchases. Applied Materials adds an aggregate price column that includes the 1% excise tax under the Inflation Reduction Act. Host Hotels & Resorts prints a second table for its operating partnership's units. Some companies count shares in thousands or millions, so a "5" in Cisco's table means 5 million shares.

The rule that is in force

On May 3, 2023 the SEC adopted amendments "to modernize and improve disclosure about repurchases", including a new Form F-SR. They took effect on July 31, 2023 and did not last. The SEC's technical amendments published on April 8, 2024 (89 FR 24373) record that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the rule on December 19, 2023, and that the vacatur had "the legal effect of reverting to the rules and forms that existed prior to the effective date". The same notice rescinds the changes in the Code of Federal Regulations.

The 2025 edition of Item 703 shows the result: the monthly table, three month rows and a total, with the source note for the April 2024 amendments. Every table counted in this article was filed under that rule.

The cash flow statement line

In the statement of cash flows, buybacks sit in the financing section, in brackets, usually as "Repurchases of common stock" or "Purchases of treasury stock". The XBRL tag beneath the label is more uniform: PaymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock. For calendar 2025, the SEC's frames API returns that tag for 2,278 filers.

The cash flow line and the 10-Q table do not have to match, even for the same quarter. The table counts shares on the trade date and reports an average price; the cash flow statement counts cash on the settlement date. Excise tax, commissions and accelerated repurchase prepayments can sit in one and not the other, and the cash flow statement in a 10-Q covers the year to date.

Lining the tag up against operating cash flow for the same fiscal year shows how large buybacks are against the cash a business generates. Of the 76 companies, 57 report both tags with positive operating cash flow in the 2025 frame.

For 19 of 57 companies, buybacks took a quarter to a half of operating cash flow

Companies, of 57 with both tags; n = 57

The numbers

Repurchases as a share of operating cash flow	Companies, of 57 with both tags
None reported (zero)	9
0% to under 10%	7
10% to under 25%	7
25% to under 50%	19
50% to under 100%	12
100% or more	3

The median company spent 34.6% of its operating cash flow on repurchases. Nine reported zero. Fifteen spent half or more, and 3 spent more than their operating cash flow, which means the rest came from cash on hand, borrowing or asset sales. The chart shows bands, not names: the ratio says how a company used its cash in one year and nothing about whether it should have.

Seventy-six 10-Qs, seven ways to report

The script read the latest 10-Q of each company, found the last heading that begins "Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities" (the first is usually the table of contents), and read up to the next Part II item: Item 3, or Item 4, 5 or 6 when the 10-Q leaves Item 3 out. A 10-Q that skips Item 3 would otherwise carry Item 5 into the count, where companies report their directors' and officers' Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangements. A section counts as a table when it prints the column heading "Average Price Paid". Month rows are read after the headings: a date range or a month and year, then the first figure or dash. The latest 10-Qs cover quarters ending from April 25, 2026 to October 3, 2026.

36 of 76 latest 10-Qs show purchases in every month of the quarter

10-Qs, of 76; n = 76

The numbers

What Item 2 prints	10-Qs, of 76
Table, purchases in all three months	36
Table, purchases in one or two months	12
Table, no purchases in any month	3
Table the month rule could not read	2
Prose only, no table	5
Item 2 reads "None"	8
Item 2 not read: heading worded otherwise	10

Thirty-six tables show purchases in all three months, 12 in one or two, and 3 print the table with a dash in every row: International Business Machines, Columbus McKinnon and Host Hotels & Resorts. Two tables have only two month rows, which the rule leaves unread. Eight sections say only "None", 5 describe the program in prose without a table, and in 10 the body heading is worded differently from the rule, so the section was not read.

A dash and "None" are different statements. A company that prints the table with dashes still reports what is left of its authorization in column (d); IBM's rows each show $2,007,611,768 remaining. "None" says there was nothing to report in the quarter.

What CFOs said about repurchases

Of the 199 verified CFO quotes, 13 use a form of the word "repurchase" or "buyback", and 15 match the site's buybacks and dividends topic rule, 7.5% of the total. Where a CFO gives a figure, it can be checked against the table and the cash flow line.

In the first half of 2026, we deployed $1.6 billion on share repurchases and $1.3 billion on acquisitions aligned with our AI builder strategy.

Jatin Dalal, Chief Financial Officer, Cognizant, in the release furnished on July 29, 2026 (Exhibit 99.1; quote record).

We repurchased more than $640 million of shares through the first nine months of the year, reflecting our confidence in Zebra's long-term opportunity and our commitment to disciplined capital allocation.

Nathan Winters, Chief Financial Officer of Zebra Technologies, in the release furnished on November 3, 2026 (Exhibit 99.1; quote record).

During the quarter, we deployed capital across both strategic growth initiatives and shareholder returns, including the acquisition of CODY Systems and the repurchase of 1.1 million shares of our common stock.

Brian Miller, Tyler's executive vice president and chief financial officer, Tyler Technologies, in the release furnished on October 28, 2026 (Exhibit 99.1; quote record).

The first two state dollars, which match the financing line of the cash flow statement over the same months. The third states shares, which match the total row of the Item 703 table. A CFO can also describe a plan rather than a purchase:

Our recently increased dividend and plans to resume share repurchases in fiscal 2027 underscore our confidence and disciplined focus on driving sustainable long-term value.

Cathy Smith, chief financial officer, Starbucks, in the release furnished on October 29, 2026 (Exhibit 99.1; quote record).

A sentence like that has no table behind it yet. It becomes checkable when the 10-Q for the quarter in which purchases resume prints its rows. Every quote on the theme is on the buybacks and dividends topic page.

Rule 10b-18 in one section

Rule 10b-18 is a safe harbor, not a requirement. It protects an issuer's open market purchases from liability for manipulation under sections 9(a)(2) and 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, solely by reason of their time, price, amount or the number of brokers used, if four conditions are met on each day:

1. One broker or dealer on any single day.
2. Not the opening purchase, and not in the last 10 minutes before the scheduled close for a security with an average daily trading volume of $1 million or more and a public float of $150 million or more; 30 minutes for all other securities.
3. A price no higher than the highest independent bid or the last independent transaction price, whichever is higher.
4. A daily volume of no more than 25 percent of the security's average daily trading volume, with one block purchase a week allowed in its place.

The rule's own text says it is voluntary, and the 2025 instruction to Item 703 asks companies to disclose all purchases, including those that do not meet its conditions. The 10-Qs rarely name it: 5 of the 66 sections mention Rule 10b-18, against 18 that mention Rule 10b5-1, the separate rule under which a company or an officer can trade under a plan set in advance.

Rule 10b5-1 plans, withheld shares and open-ended programs each come up in 18 to 22 of 66 sections; Rule 10b-18 in 5

10-Qs, of 66; n = 66

The numbers

What the section mentions	10-Qs, of 66
A Rule 10b5-1 trading plan	18
Shares withheld for employee taxes	20
A program with no expiration date	22
Rule 10b-18	5

A checklist for reading the table

1. Find Part II, Item 2 of the 10-Q, or Part II, Item 5 of the 10-K. Skip the table of contents entry.
2. Check the unit line above the table. Shares may be in thousands or millions, and column (d) may be in millions of dollars.
3. Compare column (a) with column (c). The difference is shares bought outside the program, and the footnote says what they were.
4. Read column (d) month by month. A falling figure means purchases; a jump means a new authorization, which the footnote dates.
5. Read the footnotes for each plan's announcement date, the amount approved and its expiration, which Item 703 requires.
6. Check the cash flow statement for the dollars, remembering that it may cover the year to date and counts settlement, not trade date.
7. Treat the average price as what the company reports it paid. It is not a share price for any single day.

How the release around these tables is built is set out in what an earnings report contains, and the cash a company generates before it repurchases anything is the subject of the free cash flow piece. The methodology explains how each quote reaches the site.