Top Basic Materials Stocks by Share Buybacks
Top basic materials companies ranked by share buybacks, latest annual filings.
What Share Buybacks Mean for Basic Materials Companies
Share buybacks in basic materials are commodity-cycle sensitive, much like energy. Mining and metals producers expand repurchase programs during high-price windows when cash flow is strong and compress them during troughs, while specialty chemicals and coatings firms, with less cyclical margins, tend to run steadier programs. The dispersion within the sector makes trailing buyback dollars a weak indicator in isolation without reference to where each firm sits in the commodity cycle.
Why It Matters in Basic Materials
Variable buybacks at cyclical miners and steelmakers demonstrate capital discipline in an industry historically prone to debt-funded expansion into the cycle's top. Specialty chemistry buybacks look more like consumer defensive programs, steadier and paired with dividends. The shared caveat is that peak-cycle repurchases arithmetically execute at the worst prices, which the sector's history has illustrated painfully through many past commodity cycles.
What to Read Alongside
Pair buybacks with Free Cash Flow to see whether programs are self-funded through the commodity cycle, Capex to confirm discipline over expansion, and Net Income for earnings context across cycles.
| # | Symbol | Company | Sector | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LIN | Linde plc | Basic Materials | $4.60B | $215.91B |
| 2 | NEM | Newmont Corporation | Basic Materials | $2.30B | $133.91B |
| 3 | SHW | The Sherwin-Williams Company | Basic Materials | $1.66B | $79.16B |
| 4 | CF | CF Industries Holdings, Inc. | Basic Materials | $1.36B | $20.18B |
| 5 | CRH | CRH plc | Basic Materials | $1.18B | $60.28B |
| 6 | CTVA | Corteva, Inc. | Basic Materials | $1.07B | $58.62B |
| 7 | STLD | Steel Dynamics, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.90B | $34.44B |
| 8 | PPG | PPG Industries, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.79B | $24.39B |
| 9 | ECL | Ecolab Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.78B | $77.96B |
| 10 | NUE | Nucor Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.70B | $58.17B |
| 11 | RS | Reliance, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.59B | $20.34B |
| 12 | NTR | Nutrien Ltd. | Basic Materials | $0.56B | $38.50B |
| 13 | MLM | Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.45B | $36.36B |
| 14 | VMC | Vulcan Materials Company | Basic Materials | $0.44B | $33.47B |
| 15 | UFPI | UFP Industries, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.43B | $4.59B |
| 16 | EXP | Eagle Materials Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.38B | $5.85B |
| 17 | MT | ArcelorMittal S.A. | Basic Materials | $0.26B | $58.05B |
| 18 | VALE | Vale S.A. | Basic Materials | $0.24B | $66.22B |
| 19 | LYB | LyondellBasell Industries N.V. | Basic Materials | $0.20B | $20.87B |
| 20 | BCC | Boise Cascade Company | Basic Materials | $0.18B | $2.68B |
| 21 | CBT | Cabot Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.17B | $4.15B |
| 22 | AXTA | Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. | Basic Materials | $0.17B | $7.60B |
| 23 | SSD | Simpson Manufacturing Co., Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.12B | $7.33B |
| 24 | TGLS | Tecnoglass Holdings Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.12B | $1.79B |
| 25 | CSTM | Constellium SE | Basic Materials | $0.12B | $3.72B |
| 26 | BCPC | Balchem Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.11B | $5.44B |
| 27 | FCX | Freeport-McMoRan Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.11B | $104.44B |
| 28 | ASH | Ashland Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.10B | $3.33B |
| 29 | SLVM | Sylvamo Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.08B | $1.41B |
| 30 | RPM | RPM International Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.08B | $13.05B |
| 31 | NEU | NewMarket Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.08B | $7.98B |
| 32 | WLK | Westlake Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.06B | $9.55B |
| 33 | FUL | H.B. Fuller Company | Basic Materials | $0.06B | $2.85B |
| 34 | MTX | Minerals Technologies Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.06B | $2.20B |
| 35 | NGVT | Ingevity Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.06B | $2.38B |
| 36 | OLN | Olin Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.05B | $2.04B |
| 37 | ECVT | Ecovyst Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.05B | $1.11B |
| 38 | PAAS | Pan American Silver Corp. | Basic Materials | $0.05B | $21.15B |
| 39 | KWR | Quaker Chemical Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.04B | $2.77B |
| 40 | PRM | Perimeter Solutions, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.04B | $5.25B |
| 41 | KOP | Koppers Holdings Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.04B | $0.89B |
| 42 | IFF | International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.04B | $21.85B |
| 43 | OR | OR Royalties Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.04B | $6.91B |
| 44 | GFI | Gold Fields Limited | Basic Materials | $0.04B | $42.04B |
| 45 | REX | REX American Resources Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.03B | $1.41B |
| 46 | GPRE | Green Plains Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.03B | $1.11B |
| 47 | ESI | Element Solutions Inc | Basic Materials | $0.03B | $8.82B |
| 48 | IOSP | Innospec Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.02B | $2.30B |
| 49 | SMG | The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company | Basic Materials | $0.02B | $3.35B |
| 50 | NWPX | NWPX Infrastructure, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.02B | $1.03B |
| 51 | MTUS | Metallus Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.01B | $0.80B |
| 52 | WDFC | WD-40 Company | Basic Materials | $0.01B | $2.71B |
| 53 | MTRN | Materion Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.01B | $5.33B |
| 54 | GSM | Ferroglobe PLC | Basic Materials | $0.00B | $0.84B |
| 55 | USLM | United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. | Basic Materials | $0.00B | $3.36B |
| 56 | ODC | Oil-Dri Corporation of America | Basic Materials | $0.00B | $1.25B |
| 57 | HL | Hecla Mining Company | Basic Materials | $0.00B | $13.74B |
| 58 | UAMY | United States Antimony Corporation | Basic Materials | $0.00B | $0.81B |
No companies match this search.
How this ranking is built
Companies are ranked by share buybacks as reported in their most recent annual filing with the SEC. Figures shown are in US dollars (or percent, as noted), rounded to two decimals.
- Source: annual 10-K / 20-F filings from companies trading on US exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq, AMEX).
- Fiscal year: whichever annual period the company has most recently filed. Fiscal years don't always align with the calendar year, so the "as of FY" stamp above reflects the most common year across the table.
- Filtered out: warrants, preferred shares, and duplicate listings that share a parent company's financials.
- Size floor: A company qualifies at $500 million in market cap or above. Below that, one mis-stated figure outranks the companies the list is about.
- Currency check: A company whose annual revenue runs above 15 times its market cap is left out, because at that gap the two figures are not in the same currency.
- Currency check: A company whose balance sheet runs above 150 times its market cap is left out for the same reason.
- Update cadence: refreshed as companies file new annual reports (typically within 60–90 days of fiscal year end).
Not financial advice. This is a research tool, not a recommendation.