Capital Stock and Earnings Per Share

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2019

Capital Stock – The Company is authorized to issue 2,000,000 shares of preferred stock of $1.00 par value, none of which is outstanding. The Company's common stock has a par value of $0.01 per share. Share information regarding the Company's common stock at December 31, was as follows:



	2019	2018
Common stock shares:
Authorized	800,000,000	800,000,000
Issued	182,816,536	181,931,225
Outstanding	152,468,442	159,657,947

Treasury stock shares	30,348,094	22,273,278

Discretionary share repurchases during the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017 were $286.7 million or 8.2 million shares, $382.0 million or 9.2 million shares, and $456.1 million or 8.7 million shares, respectively. Share repurchases of common stock that employees surrendered to satisfy withholding taxes in connection with the vesting of restricted stock units (RSUs) were $9.8 million or 0.3 million shares, $8.6 million or 0.2 million shares, and $9.2 million or 0.2 million shares during the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively, discussed further in Note 17.

The Company paid cash dividends of $1.50, $1.48, and $1.46 per share during the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018, and 2017, respectively.

Earnings Per Share – The computation of basic and diluted earnings per share for the years ended December 31, was as follows (in thousands except per share amounts):



	2019		2018		2017
Net income	$	423,635	$	531,451	$	521,759

Basic weighted-average shares outstanding	157,054		165,672		171,995
Effect of dilutive securities – employee stock compensation plan	750		832		937
Diluted weighted-average shares outstanding	157,804		166,504		172,932
Earnings per share:
Basic	$	2.70	$	3.21	$	3.03
Diluted	$	2.68	$	3.19	$	3.02

Outstanding options to purchase 1.1 million, 1.1 million and 0.8 million shares of common stock during 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively, were not included in the effect of dilutive securities because the exercise price was greater than the market price and therefore, the effect would have been anti-dilutive.

The Company has a share-based compensation plan under which employees may be granted share-based awards including RSUs. Non-forfeitable dividend equivalents are paid on unvested RSUs. As such, RSUs are considered participating securities under the two-class method of calculating earnings per share as described in ASC Topic 260, Earnings Per Share. The two-class method of calculating earnings per share did not have a material impact on the Company’s earnings per share calculation as of December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017.