Alcoa Corp (AA) — payout ratio, three ways
Fiscal year ending 2025-12-31 · sector Materials · computed from SEC filings, not taken from a data vendor.
| Basis | Payout | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | 2.3% | A single year's earnings for a commodity producer can be several times the through-cycle average. This ratio computed in a trough looks alarming and in a peak looks trivial; neither describes whether the dividend is affordable across a cycle. |
| Operating cash flow | 8.8% | Worse than the earnings figure, not better: operating cash flow absorbs working capital — inventory, receivables, payables — that earnings do not. |
| Free cash flow | 18.3% | The most honest single-year figure here, because it nets out the capital spending that commodity producers cut hard in a downturn — which is also why it flatters a trough year. |
Spread between highest and lowest: 16 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $0.10 ÷ diluted EPS $4.37
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $104.0m ÷ operating cash flow $1,185.0m
- Free cash flow — dividends paid $104.0m ÷ (operating cash flow $1,185.0m − capex $618.0m)
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-26 · accession
0001193125-26-077167
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take my word for any of it.
Caveats on this company
- DPS $0.10 filed as paid, but dividends paid imply $0.40 — one of the two underlying facts is wrong. The filed per-share figure is used.
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell me — that is more useful to me than agreement.