Stocks might have taken it on the chin on Friday due to Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve not having enough confidence in the global markets to handle a rate hike, but many aspects of corporate America are running quite well. In fact, many companies are still hiking dividends and announcing large share buyback plans. These are the two top methods of returning capital to shareholders.

24/7 Wall St. reviews most key dividend hikes and large share repurchase plans daily, weekly and monthly. It turns out that of the many announcements that are made, some dividend and/or buyback announcements stand out much more than others. In fact, some buybacks and dividends are just too big to ignore when they are announced.

What investors have to consider is what yield they are receiving. They also have to consider what a buyback announcement means, versus either an average volume or a company’s market cap. One consideration is that stocks do not always react immediately to such announcements. Sometimes the benefits are not seen for days, weeks or months.

These are the seven buyback announcements and/or dividend hikes from just the past week that are just too large for investors to ignore.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) raised its dividend last week, to $0.36 per share from a prior $0.31 payout. Microsoft’s yield was already screening at 2.8%, and now it will rise to 3.3% after the hike takes place. Let’s think about what this means with a $350 billion market cap: Microsoft has just committed to pay close to $11.5 billion in annual dividend payments, and you know companies cannot raise dividends and then consider lowering those payments soon. Sadly, this news was overlooked during much of the week as it was released late on Tuesday night. The stock’s $43.48 close on Friday was not even above the closing price when the hike was announced.

ALSO READ: Why Walt Disney Is Spending Billions on Buybacks

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) is best known for being a defense company, and it announced this past week that its board of directors has authorized an additional $4 billion to buy back common shares from time to time. No specifics were given other than being subject to market conditions and in open market or private transactions. Northrop Grumman has a $31.7 billion market cap, so this is not exactly small potatoes.
Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) gave the daily double, a dividend hike and a higher share buyback announcement. The chip-maker hiked its dividend to $0.38 from $0.34 in the move. TI’s investors will now see their dividend yield jump to almost 3.2%, based on a $47.80 share price. The company’s board of directors also authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $7.5 billion in common stock over time, but that is in addition to approximately $1.8 billion of previously authorized repurchases that remained available at the end of June 2015. TI’s market cap is $49 billion. Friday’s market sell-off even took off 0.7% of the value, and TI has a consensus analyst target price of $54.57 and a 52-week range of $41.47 to $59.99.

Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) may or may not be back in play for M&A, but the energy infrastructure giant raised its dividend to $0.64 from $0.59 per quarter. Many rivals are not hiking their dividends at all, and some of the infrastructure master limited partnerships are cutting or at risk of cutting their distributions. The new yield for Williams will be 5.55%. The market did not immediately react to the news here, but the $46.14 closing price was up 7% from the prior Friday’s close.

ALSO READ: 9 Analyst Stock Picks Under $10 With Huge Upside Calls

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: LGF) is a movie and series production studio, not exactly the biggest group known for dividends. Still, its dividend was raised to $0.09 from $0.07 per quarter. That hike takes the yield from 0.7% up to 0.9%, almost at 1%, and shares hit a 52-week high after the hike was announced. Lions Gate now has a market cap of almost $6 billion.

NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG) cannot seem to find much footing, being among the worst performing utilities and power generation performers. Shares even slid 6% to $17.98 after its investor presentation, against a 52-week range of $17.69 to $33.92. With a clean energy spin-off coming, NRG said it aims to hit its dividend targets ahead and signaled that it would buy back up to $250 million in its common shares. The yield here is a low 3.1%, and its market cap is almost $6 billion. Wall Street has chosen to ignore NRG, and despite our title of “Too Big to Ignore” it seems that ignoring NRG would have been better so far in 2015.

Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM) has managed to do something we did not see coming. Its dividend yield has surpassed that of former parent Altria, even after it recently raised its dividend payout. Philip Morris’s yield hike from $1.00 to $1.02 doesn’t sound that impressive, but it brings the yield up to 5.3%. This is the international operation, and the new $4.08 annualized payout compares to consensus earnings per share estimates of $4.41 for 2015 and $4.67 for 2016.

ALSO READ: Is Verizon’s Dividend Safe on Flat Earnings?

If you missed out on the prior week’s report of dividends and buybacks that were too big to be ignored, they were in American Tower, Assurant, Citrix, H&R Block, JD.com, Monster Beverage, NGL Energy and Walt Disney.

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