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 Elevance Health (ELV) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q2 2026, Elevance Health generated $7.46B of operating cash flow and $6.29B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 84.3% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Elevance Health (ELV) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Elevance Health (ELV) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$7.46B

Capex

-$1.18B

Free Cash Flow

$6.29B

FCF Margin

+84.3%

Cash flow waterfall for Elevance Health (ELV) — TTM through Q2 2026

Free cash flow: $6.29B

Cash flow breakdown for Elevance Health (ELV) — TTM through Q2 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$7.46B	$7.46B
Capital Expenditure	-$1.18B	$6.29B
Free Cash Flow	$6.29B	$6.29B
Other Investing	-$1.07B	$5.22B
Share Buybacks	-$2.71B	$2.52B
Dividends Paid	-$1.51B	$1.01B
Net Debt Change	$1.78B	$2.78B
Other Financing & FX	-$1.11B	$1.67B
Net Cash Increase	$1.67B	$1.67B

Operating Cash Flow$7.46B
Capital Expenditure-$1.18B
Free Cash Flow$6.29B
Other Investing-$1.07B
Share Buybacks-$2.71B
Dividends Paid-$1.51B
Net Debt Change$1.78B
Other Financing & FX-$1.11B
Net Cash Increase$1.67B

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

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