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 PTC (PTC) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, PTC generated $939M of operating cash flow and $928M of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 98.9% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did PTC (PTC) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

PTC (PTC) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$939M

Capex

-$10.4M

Free Cash Flow

$928M

FCF Margin

+98.9%

Cash flow waterfall for PTC (PTC) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $928M

Cash flow breakdown for PTC (PTC) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$939M	$939M
Capital Expenditure	-$10.4M	$928M
Free Cash Flow	$928M	$928M
Acquisitions	$517M	$1.44B
Other Investing	$4.45M	$1.45B
Share Buybacks	-$976M	$473M
Net Debt Change	$737M	$1.21B
Other Financing & FX	-$1.01B	$203M
Net Cash Increase	$203M	$203M

Operating Cash Flow$939M
Capital Expenditure-$10.4M
Free Cash Flow$928M
Acquisitions$517M
Other Investing$4.45M
Share Buybacks-$976M
Net Debt Change$737M
Other Financing & FX-$1.01B
Net Cash Increase$203M

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

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