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 Ally Financial (ALLY) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Ally Financial generated $4.17B of operating cash flow and $11M of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 0.3% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Ally Financial (ALLY) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Ally Financial's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Ally Financial (ALLY) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$4.17B

Capex

-$4.16B

Free Cash Flow

$11M

FCF Margin

+0.3%

Cash flow waterfall for Ally Financial (ALLY) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $11M

Note: Other Investing is large — driven mainly by purchases or sales of investments.

Cash flow breakdown for Ally Financial (ALLY) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$4.17B	$4.17B
Capital Expenditure	-$4.16B	$11M
Free Cash Flow	$11M	$11M
Acquisitions	$3.36B	$3.37B
Other Investing	-$6.18B	-$2.81B
Share Buybacks	-$172M	-$2.98B
Dividends Paid	-$491M	-$3.47B
Net Debt Change	$1.59B	-$1.88B
Other Financing	$1.69B	-$193M
Forex Effect	-$11.2B	-$11.4B
Net Cash Decrease	-$12B	-$12B

Operating Cash Flow$4.17B
Capital Expenditure-$4.16B
Free Cash Flow$11M
Acquisitions$3.36B
Other Investing-$6.18B
Share Buybacks-$172M
Dividends Paid-$491M
Net Debt Change$1.59B
Other Financing$1.69B
Forex Effect-$11.2B
Net Cash Decrease-$12B

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

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