Capital Allocation

Perform a deep dive into capital allocation for the company named in the user's request. If no ticker or company is provided, ask for one before proceeding.

Before starting, read ../data-access.md for data access methods and ../design-system.md for formatting conventions. Follow the data access detection logic and design system throughout this skill.

Follow these steps:

1. Company Lookup

Look up the company by ticker using discover_companies. Capture:

• company_id
• latest_calendar_quarter — anchor for all period calculations below (see ../data-access.md Section 1.5)
• latest_fiscal_quarter
• Firm name for report attribution (default: "Daloopa") — see ../data-access.md Section 4.5

2. Market Data

Get the current stock price, market cap, and shares outstanding for {TICKER} (see ../data-access.md Section 2 for how to source market data in your environment).

• This is needed to compute yields and per-share metrics

If market data is unavailable, note that market-derived metrics (yields, etc.) cannot be computed and proceed with Daloopa data only.

3. Capital Allocation Data

Calculate 8 quarters backward from latest_calendar_quarter. Pull:

Share Count & Buybacks:

• Diluted shares outstanding
• Share repurchase amounts (dollars)
• Shares retired/repurchased (units, if available)

Dividends:

• Dividends per share
• Total dividend payments
• Special dividends (if any)

Cash Flow:

• Operating Cash Flow
• Capital Expenditures
• Free Cash Flow (compute as OCF - CapEx, label "(calc.)")
• D&A (for reference)

Balance Sheet:

• Cash and equivalents
• Short-term investments / marketable securities
• Total debt (short + long term)
• Net debt (compute as Total Debt - Cash - Investments, label "(calc.)")

M&A / Investments:

• Search for "acquisition", "purchase of business", "investment" in series
• Pull any available M&A-related series

4. Compute Capital Allocation Metrics

Calculate for each quarter where data is available:

Shareholder Returns:

• Total Buyback Amount
• Total Dividend Amount
• Total Shareholder Return = Buybacks + Dividends
• Shareholder Yield = (Buybacks + Dividends) / Market Cap (annualized)
• Buyback Yield = Buybacks / Market Cap (annualized)
• Dividend Yield = Dividends / Market Cap (annualized)

FCF Deployment:

• FCF Payout Ratio = Total Shareholder Return / FCF
• CapEx as % of Revenue
• CapEx as % of OCF
• FCF Margin = FCF / Revenue

Leverage:

• Net Debt / EBITDA (if EBITDA available; compute from Operating Income + D&A if needed)
• Net Debt / Equity
• Interest Coverage = Operating Income / Interest Expense (if available)
• Cash as % of Market Cap

Share Count Dynamics:

• QoQ share count change
• YoY share count change
• Implied buyback rate (QoQ % reduction)
• At current buyback rate, years to retire X% of shares

5. Qualitative Research

Search SEC filings for capital allocation strategy and context. Try multiple searches:

• Buyback program: Try "repurchase program", "share repurchase"; fallback to "buyback", "authorization"
• Dividend policy: Try "dividend", "capital return"; fallback to "distribution", "payout"
• M&A strategy: Try "acquisition", "strategic"; fallback to "purchase", "investment"
• Capital priorities: Try "capital allocation", "priorities"; fallback to "deploy", "balance sheet"
• Debt management: Try "debt", "refinance"; fallback to "leverage", "maturity"

Extract:

• Board-authorized buyback programs (remaining authorization amount)
• Dividend policy (commitment to growth, payout ratio targets)
• M&A philosophy (bolt-on vs transformational, deal pipeline commentary)
• Management's stated capital allocation framework and priorities
• Any changes in capital allocation strategy
• Direct quotes with document citations

6. Historical Analysis & Value Judgment

Analyze the 8-quarter trend:

• Is buyback activity accelerating or decelerating?
• Is the company buying back more shares when price is lower (disciplined) or higher (less disciplined)?
• Dividend growth rate (if applicable)
• Shift between CapEx, buybacks, dividends, and debt repayment over time
• FCF conversion trend (is more/less of OCF converting to FCF?)

Honestly assess whether capital allocation is creating or destroying value:

• If the company is buying back stock at all-time-high prices with deteriorating fundamentals, call it value destruction — even if EPS looks better from the lower share count.
• If the company is under-investing in CapEx or R&D to fund buybacks, flag the risk to long-term competitiveness.
• If FCF payout ratio exceeds 100%, the company is funding returns with debt or cash drawdowns — flag this as unsustainable.
• Compare the implied return from buybacks (inverse of P/E at purchase prices) to what the company could earn from organic reinvestment or M&A.

6.5. Reinvestment Assessment

Assess whether the company is adequately reinvesting in its business or funding returns at the expense of long-term competitiveness.

Pull reinvestment metrics (8 quarters):

• R&D expense (and R&D as % of revenue)
• Capital Expenditures (and CapEx as % of revenue)
• Key growth KPIs relevant to the business model (use sector taxonomy):
  • SaaS/Cloud: ARR, net revenue retention, RPO/cRPO, customers >$100K
  • Consumer Tech: DAU/MAU, ARPU, installed base, paid subscribers
  • E-commerce/Marketplace: GMV, take rate, active buyers/sellers
  • Retail: same-store sales, store count, average ticket
  • Telecom/Media: subscribers, churn, ARPU, content spend
  • Hardware: units shipped, ASP, attach rate
  • Financial Services: AUM, NIM, loan growth, fee income ratio
  • Pharma/Biotech: pipeline stage, patient starts, scripts, market share
  • Industrials/Energy: backlog, book-to-bill, utilization, production volumes

Assess reinvestment adequacy:

• Is R&D/revenue trending down while buybacks are increasing? This may indicate the company is funding shareholder returns by underinvesting in innovation.
• Is CapEx/revenue declining while the business requires sustained infrastructure investment (e.g., cloud, manufacturing, stores)?
• Are growth KPIs (subscriber adds, customer growth, same-store sales) deteriorating while capital returns are at record levels? This is a red flag — the company may be harvesting rather than growing.
• Compare R&D intensity and CapEx intensity vs peers (if available from the industry or comps skills). Is the company investing more or less than competitors?

Value creation vs extraction verdict:

• Net assessment: Is the company's capital allocation creating long-term value (reinvesting at high ROIC, buying back cheap stock, growing dividends sustainably) or extracting value (under-investing to fund buybacks at premium valuations, leveraging up for returns)?

7. Save Report

Save to reports/{TICKER}_capital_allocation.html using the HTML report template from ../design-system.md. Write the full analysis as styled HTML with the design system CSS inlined. This is the final deliverable — no intermediate markdown step needed.

Structure the report with these sections:

<h1>{Company Name} ({TICKER}) — Capital Allocation Analysis</h1>
<p>Generated: {date}</p>

<h2>Summary</h2>
{2-3 sentences: How does this company deploy its capital? Key takeaways.}

<h2>Current Snapshot</h2>
<table>
| Metric | Value |
| Market Cap | $XXX |
| Trailing 4Q FCF | $XXX |
| FCF Yield | X.X% |
| Shareholder Yield | X.X% |
| Net Debt / EBITDA | X.Xx |
| Remaining Buyback Authorization | $XXX |
</table>

<h2>Cash Flow & FCF (8 Quarters)</h2>
<table>
| Metric | Q1 | Q2 | ... | Q8 |
{OCF, CapEx, FCF, FCF Margin % — with Daloopa citations}
</table>

<h2>Share Repurchases & Dividends (8 Quarters)</h2>
<table>
| Metric | Q1 | Q2 | ... | Q8 |
{Buyback $, Dividends $, Total Return, Share Count — with Daloopa citations}
</table>

<h2>Shareholder Yield Analysis</h2>
<table>
| Metric | Q1 | Q2 | ... | Q8 |
{Buyback Yield, Div Yield, Total Yield, FCF Payout Ratio}
</table>

<h2>Leverage & Balance Sheet (8 Quarters)</h2>
<table>
| Metric | Q1 | Q2 | ... | Q8 |
{Cash, Debt, Net Debt, Net Debt/EBITDA — with Daloopa citations}
</table>

<h2>Capital Allocation Framework</h2>
{Management's stated priorities from filings, with document citations}

<h2>Reinvestment Assessment</h2>
<table>
| Metric | Q1 | Q2 | ... | Q8 |
{R&D, R&D % Rev, CapEx, CapEx % Rev, key growth KPIs — with Daloopa citations}
</table>
{Analysis: Is the company adequately reinvesting? R&D/CapEx trends vs growth KPI trends. Value creation vs extraction verdict.}

<h2>Buyback Discipline Analysis</h2>
{Analysis of buyback timing vs price, share count reduction trend, authorization remaining}

<h2>M&A Activity</h2>
{Any acquisitions from filings, deal sizes, strategic rationale}

<h2>Key Observations</h2>
<ul>{3-5 bullet points on capital allocation quality, trends, and implications}</ul>

All financial figures must use Daloopa citation format: <a href="https://daloopa.com/src/{fundamental_id}">$X.XX million</a>

Tell the user where the HTML report was saved.

Highlight the key capital allocation story (e.g., "AAPL returned $XX billion to shareholders over the last year, a X.X% shareholder yield, with buybacks accelerating").