Companies have two basic ways to hand profits back to owners, a dividend check or a buyback that shrinks the share count. Both usually belong to slow, mature businesses. This November, boards across chip equipment, insurance, gas utilities, banking, and IT services all opened the taps.
Applied's record quarter of cash
Applied Materials posted record revenue of $10.41B in its fiscal fourth quarter, up 53% from a year earlier.
The company returned $2.42B to shareholders in those three months. That included $2B of share repurchases, its largest quarterly buyback in more than eight years, plus $421M in dividends.
Buybacks Did Most of the Work at Applied Materials
Cash returned to shareholders, fiscal Q4 2026, quarter ended Oct. 25, 2026, USD
Bar chart. Cash Returned ($B). Share buybacks: Cash Returned ($B) $2. Dividends: Cash Returned ($B) $0.4.
Source: Applied Materials Q4 FY2026 press release
Management framed the quarter around cash generation rather than orders. Operating cash flow hit a record $3.30B, and chief financial officer Brice Hill said free cash flow was a record $2.6B for the quarter.
For the full fiscal year, Applied generated record revenue of $34.45B, up 21% from fiscal 2025. It returned $4.75B to shareholders through $3.18B in repurchases and $1.57B in dividends.
Full-year buybacks were still lower than the year before, when the cash flow statement shows $4.9B of repurchases. The quarterly surge didn't carry across all 12 months.
The streak keepers kept streaking
Aflac declared a first quarter dividend of $0.64, a 4.9% increase over the prior quarter. It's the insurer's 44th consecutive year of increases, with the payout due March 1, 2027.
Chairman and chief executive Daniel P. Amos said the record is supported by the strength of the company's capital and cash flows.
Spire lifted its annual dividend to $3.46 from $3.30, a rise of 4.8%. The gas utility has paid a cash dividend since 1946, and 2027 marks its 24th consecutive year of annualized increases.
The quarterly rate moves to $0.865, payable Jan. 5, 2027.
Others moved harder. First National raised its quarterly payout to $0.19 from $0.17, an increase of 11.8%, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing announced a 25.9% dividend increase to $1.3663, payable April 8, 2027.
Dividend Hikes This Week Ran From Insurers To Chipmakers
Announced dividend increases, week of Nov. 9, 2026, %
Line chart. Increase (%). Aflac: Increase (%) 4.90%. Spire: Increase (%) 4.80%. First National: Increase (%) 11.80%. TSMC: Increase (%) 25.90%.
Source: Company releases; DividendStocks.com
A software firm joins the buyback rush
EPAM Systems signed a fixed dollar accelerated share repurchase agreement with UBS on Nov. 9 covering $500M of its own stock. EPAM pays UBS the full amount up front and receives an initial delivery of roughly 2.55M shares, expected by Nov. 10.
The deal sits inside a $1.8B authorization the board approved on Sept. 30, 2026. EPAM is funding it with cash on hand and borrowings from its existing credit facility, with final settlement expected in the first quarter of 2027.
The company has also committed to returning at least 50% of free cash flow to shareholders annually from 2027 through 2029.
What the cash flood signals
Payouts cluster when boards are confident about forward cash, and the week's list ran from chip equipment to insurance to energy to banking. Automatic Data Processing raised its quarterly dividend 11.8% to $1.90, and ConocoPhillips went up 10.7% to $0.93.
The AI boom runs underneath the whole story. Applied Materials chief executive Gary Dickerson said artificial intelligence keeps fueling incremental chip demand, and the semiconductor systems unit is on track to grow more than 40% in calendar 2026.
Applied is funding that buyback while guiding next-quarter revenue to $11.10B, above the $10.85B Wall Street expected. The old playbook treated growth spending and shareholder returns running at once as contradictory.
Aflac's 44-year streak says more about balance sheet durability than about income, because the income case now rests on dividend growth rates rather than starting yields.
Not everything on the week's list is cash already out the door. Applied's repurchases are completed, while the dividend increases are declarations with payment dates stretching from December into April.
EPAM's $1.8B is an authorization, and its $500M UBS deal is a signed agreement that settles in the first quarter of 2027. For every name on the list, the same test applies to what has been paid, what is promised, and how it's funded.
