Nvidia's Buyback Returns Have Been Shrinking Every Time
"History says this buyback is bullish" is running everywhere today. Technically, it's true. Nvidia's stock beat the S&P 500 after all three of its previous buyback increases.
Here's the part that headline skips past though, honestly.
Nvidia's board added $25 billion in August 2023. The stock rose about 175% over the next 12 months, versus 27% for the index.
Then $50 billion in August 2024. Stock up 43% versus the index's 16%.
Then $60 billion in August 2025. Stock up just 26% versus the index's 19%.
175%, then 43%, then 26%. I noticed the pattern before I noticed the individual numbers, tbh.
Every single increase has been bigger than the last. Every single return has been smaller.
I think that's the actual story here, not "buybacks are bullish," which is technically correct but flattens a much sharper trend underneath it. The market's still beating the index each time, sure. But the margin of outperformance has been shrinking fast, even as Nvidia throws increasingly larger sums behind it.
Now there's a $150 billion increase. More than double the last one. Total authorization up to $235 billion.
If the trend holds, this round's percentage outperformance should be smaller still, tbh. Not because the buyback's weaker. Because the stock's starting from a vastly bigger base each time, with less room left to double from here the way it did back in 2023.
Worth being fair to the other read too, honestly. Apple's own buyback history shows something similar. Consistent outperformance, but the earliest, smallest increases produced the biggest relative gains. That's arguably just how compounding works on a stock that keeps growing, not a warning sign specifically.
I'm not predicting this one breaks the pattern. Just noting "history says buy" is true, and it's also quietly hiding a fairly consistent deceleration inside it, one that's easy to miss if you only check whether the stock beat the market, not by how much less each time.
$NVDAB
"History says this buyback is bullish" is running everywhere today. Technically, it's true. Nvidia's stock beat the S&P 500 after all three of its previous buyback increases.
Here's the part that headline skips past though, honestly.
Nvidia's board added $25 billion in August 2023. The stock rose about 175% over the next 12 months, versus 27% for the index.
Then $50 billion in August 2024. Stock up 43% versus the index's 16%.
Then $60 billion in August 2025. Stock up just 26% versus the index's 19%.
175%, then 43%, then 26%. I noticed the pattern before I noticed the individual numbers, tbh.
Every single increase has been bigger than the last. Every single return has been smaller.
I think that's the actual story here, not "buybacks are bullish," which is technically correct but flattens a much sharper trend underneath it. The market's still beating the index each time, sure. But the margin of outperformance has been shrinking fast, even as Nvidia throws increasingly larger sums behind it.
Now there's a $150 billion increase. More than double the last one. Total authorization up to $235 billion.
If the trend holds, this round's percentage outperformance should be smaller still, tbh. Not because the buyback's weaker. Because the stock's starting from a vastly bigger base each time, with less room left to double from here the way it did back in 2023.
Worth being fair to the other read too, honestly. Apple's own buyback history shows something similar. Consistent outperformance, but the earliest, smallest increases produced the biggest relative gains. That's arguably just how compounding works on a stock that keeps growing, not a warning sign specifically.
I'm not predicting this one breaks the pattern. Just noting "history says buy" is true, and it's also quietly hiding a fairly consistent deceleration inside it, one that's easy to miss if you only check whether the stock beat the market, not by how much less each time.
$NVDAB
