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 Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q2 2026, Intuitive Surgical generated $3.71B of operating cash flow and $3.22B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 86.9% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$3.71B

Capex

-$484M

Free Cash Flow

$3.22B

FCF Margin

+86.9%

Cash flow waterfall for Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) — TTM through Q2 2026

Free cash flow: $3.22B

Cash flow breakdown for Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) — TTM through Q2 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$3.71B	$3.71B
Capital Expenditure	-$484M	$3.22B
Free Cash Flow	$3.22B	$3.22B
Other Investing	-$266M	$2.96B
Share Buybacks	-$3.56B	-$601M
Other Financing & FX	-$36.4M	-$637M
Net Cash Decrease	-$637M	-$637M

Operating Cash Flow$3.71B
Capital Expenditure-$484M
Free Cash Flow$3.22B
Other Investing-$266M
Share Buybacks-$3.56B
Other Financing & FX-$36.4M
Net Cash Decrease-$637M

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

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