What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Adobe (ADBE) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q2 2026, Adobe generated $10.8B of operating cash flow and $10.6B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 98.1% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Adobe (ADBE) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Adobe's shareholder returns for TTM through Q2 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Adobe (ADBE) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$10.8B

Capex

-$201M

Free Cash Flow

$10.6B

FCF Margin

+98.1%

Cash flow waterfall for Adobe (ADBE) — TTM through Q2 2026

Free cash flow: $10.6B

Cash flow breakdown for Adobe (ADBE) — TTM through Q2 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$10.8B	$10.8B
Capital Expenditure	-$201M	$10.6B
Free Cash Flow	$10.6B	$10.6B
Acquisitions	-$1.58B	$9.05B
Other Investing	$59M	$9.11B
Share Buybacks	-$11.9B	-$2.78B
Net Debt Change	$493M	-$2.29B
Other Financing & FX	-$53M	-$2.34B
Net Cash Decrease	-$2.34B	-$2.34B

Operating Cash Flow$10.8B
Capital Expenditure-$201M
Free Cash Flow$10.6B
Acquisitions-$1.58B
Other Investing$59M
Share Buybacks-$11.9B
Net Debt Change$493M
Other Financing & FX-$53M
Net Cash Decrease-$2.34B

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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