I noticed an interesting divergence between dividend growth and shares outstanding in the algorithm below. The algo filters Top 500 by market cap (then some additional filters for liquidity and nominal trade price). Finally it filters for companies that have reported nominal dividend growth over 150 trading days. I then compare these companies against the quantity of companies with a contraction in shares outstanding (which I label "buybacks"). It appears that in the final quarter of 2015, the trend for dividend growth remained stable, however the trend for share contraction bucked entirely. Very interesting.....