Until now, if a company paid a small cash dividend, the system automatically penalized it. But there are companies—especially Spanish ones—that reward shareholders primarily through share buybacks.
Now the system calculates total return = dividends + net buybacks.
🔹 Real-world example: Vidrala $VID (+1,43%) — with a cash dividend of just 1.94%, it appeared to have “low returns.” But when share buybacks are included, the total return is 3.67%. The engine now explicitly breaks down how much of the announced program (€90M) has already been executed (€52.7M TTM) and how much remains to be executed.
🔹 Strategy violations due to low dividend yield are downgraded from CRITICAL to WARNING when the total return is ≥ 3%, because capital IS returning to shareholders—it’s just that part of it isn’t in cash.
This is particularly relevant for IBEX 35 stocks, where the culture of scrip dividends and share buybacks is the norm.