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Treasury stock

Shares a company has bought back and still holds: how they reduce equity, how they differ from retired shares, and how Home Depot and IBM report them.

The short answer

Treasury stock is a company's own shares that it has bought back and not retired or reissued. On the balance sheet it is a subtraction from shareholders' equity, usually at cost. It is not an asset: a company cannot own a claim on itself. Some companies, instead of holding treasury shares, retire what they buy back, which reduces the number of issued shares directly.

Where it sits on the balance sheet

Shareholders' equity is usually built from common stock at par, additional paid-in capital, retained earnings and accumulated other comprehensive income, minus treasury stock. When a company buys its own shares and holds them in treasury, cash goes down and treasury stock goes up (as a larger contra-equity balance), so equity falls by the cost of the shares. If those shares are later reissued (for employee awards, for example) the treasury balance is reduced. Share buybacks describes the cash that goes out; this page is about how the shares that remain in treasury are shown.

Home Depot's fiscal 2025 10-K states that treasury stock is reflected as a reduction of stockholders' equity at cost, and reports treasury stock of $95,971 million for 806 million shares at February 1, 2026, unchanged from a year earlier. IBM's 2025 10-K reports treasury stock of $170,605 million against 1,353,666,394 shares held at year end.

Treasury stock versus retired shares

Held in treasury. Issued shares stay issued, but they are no longer outstanding. Earnings per share and voting use outstanding shares, so the buyback still reduces the share count that matters for those figures.
Retired. Some companies, Apple among them, cancel bought-back shares. The number of issued shares falls, and there is no treasury-stock line. The economic effect is the same: cash is out and equity is lower.
The 10-K's statement of shareholders' equity shows which method a company uses, and the share-count footnotes say how many shares are outstanding.

Basic vs. diluted shares and book value per share both start from outstanding shares, after treasury stock has been subtracted.

What to watch

A large treasury-stock balance is the accumulated cost of years of buybacks, not a pool of value the company can spend twice. The shares can be reissued, but they are not an asset on the balance sheet. When a company has bought back more than it has ever issued in net terms, equity can be very small or negative, which is why return-on-equity and book-value figures can look unusual at some heavily repurchasing companies.

Common questions

What is treasury stock?

A company's own shares that it has bought back and still holds, reported as a subtraction from shareholders' equity, usually at cost.

Is treasury stock an asset?

No. A company cannot record a claim on itself as an asset. Treasury stock reduces equity.

What is the difference between treasury stock and retired shares?

Treasury shares stay issued but are not outstanding. Retired shares are cancelled, and the issued share count falls. Either way, outstanding shares and equity go down when the shares are bought back.

How does treasury stock affect earnings per share?

EPS uses outstanding shares, which exclude treasury stock. A buyback that goes into treasury therefore reduces the share count used in EPS.

Why do some companies have no treasury-stock line?

They retire the shares they buy back instead of holding them. The buyback still reduces cash, equity and outstanding shares.

Disclosures

Editor holdings: The editor holds no position in any company named on this page. As of Nov 11, 2026.
Compensation: Nobody paid for this page. No affiliate links on this page.
Sources: Each company's own SEC filings, linked next to each number.
Last updated: Nov 10, 2026

General education, the same for every reader. Not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, and it doesn't consider your situation.

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