Cognizant (CTSH) Stock Buybacks: 26.1% of Shares Retired Since 2014

Name: Cognizant (CTSH) shares outstanding since 1999, split adjusted
Creator: Buyback Radar
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shares outstanding, 1999 to todaysplit adjusted, from SEC filings

1999, 443,919,3602026-07-24, 450,444,209

A share bought in 2001

1.0× more of Cognizant today, without buying another share. It was one of 464,618,328 shares then. It is one of 450,444,209 now.

Every filing we read27 fiscal years, split adjusted

Fiscal year	Date	Shares outstanding	Filing
1999	2000-03-01	443,919,360	10-K	cover page
2000	2001-03-01	449,168,064	10-K	cover page
2001	2002-03-01	464,618,328	10-K	cover page
2002	2003-03-03	491,285,712	10-K	cover page
2003	2004-03-05	516,640,328	10-K	cover page
2004	2005-03-11	539,713,384	10-K	cover page
2005	2006-03-06	560,492,984	10-K	cover page
2006	2007-02-08	570,739,564	10-K	cover page
2007	2008-02-20	576,693,438	10-K	cover page
2008	2008-12-31	583,340,000	10-K
2009	2010-02-15	595,122,438	10-K
2010	2011-02-17	608,429,576	10-K
2011	2012-02-17	606,752,268	10-K
2012	2013-02-19	603,563,804	10-K
2013	2014-02-14	607,423,974	10-K
2014	2015-02-19	609,616,575	10-K
2015	2016-02-19	609,120,446	10-K
2016	2017-02-22	608,637,143	10-K
2017	2018-02-22	588,051,333	10-K
2018	2019-02-08	575,099,275	10-K
2019	2020-02-07	548,637,106	10-K
2020	2021-02-05	530,614,258	10-K
2021	2022-02-11	524,534,828	10-K
2022	2023-02-10	509,294,618	10-K
2023	2024-02-09	497,842,032	10-K
2024	2025-02-07	494,615,514	10-K
2025	2026-02-06	478,246,920	10-K

Source: all 10-K filings of Cognizant on EDGAR. Download this series as CSV. Licence CC BY 4.0, credit Buyback Radar.

The stock, long termall time, by TradingView

Loading the chart from TradingView…

All-time chart by TradingView. Open it on TradingView →

Cognizant buybacks, answered

Is Cognizant buying back its stock?

Yes. Cognizant has 6.7% fewer shares outstanding than twelve months ago, 450,444,209 as of July 24, 2026. Over five years the share count is down 14.2%.

How many shares has Cognizant bought back?

Net of every new share it issued, Cognizant has 159.2 million fewer shares than at its 2014 peak. That is 26.1% of the company.

How many shares does Cognizant have outstanding?

450,444,209 shares, as of July 24, 2026, from the cover page of its latest 10-Q. At the 2014 peak it had 609,616,575.

What do Cognizant's buybacks mean for a shareholder?

Each share is a bigger slice of the company. Someone who held Cognizant stock in 2014 owns 1.4 times as much of the business today without buying another share. Whether that was a good use of cash depends on the price paid.

How does Cognizant compare with other cannibal stocks?

Cognizant ranks No. 196 of 251 companies on Buyback Radar by share of the company retired since its peak. Close to it on the list: Verisk Analytics (26.8%), Ashland (26.7%), Pool Corporation (25.8%), D.R. Horton (25.7%).

Every answer is computed from Cognizant's own SEC filings and rebuilt every Monday. Latest count: 10-Q on EDGAR.

Insider buying, last 12 months

ROHLEDER STEPHEN JDirector2026-06-10, 4,034 shares at $52.00 $210K total

The story

The numbers say what happened. The story says whether it can continue. We cover companies like Cognizant in depth on Cannibal Stocks.

Read Cannibal Stocks

Cognizant