Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Our common stock is listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “DGX.” As of February 1, 2022, we had approximately 2,500 record holders of our common stock; we believe that the number of beneficial holders of our common stock exceeds the number of record holders.

The table below sets forth the information with respect to purchases made by or on behalf of the Company of its common stock during the fourth quarter of 2021.

(A)In each of February 2021 and March 2021, our Board of Directors increased the size of our share repurchase program by $1 billion. Since the share repurchase program's inception in May 2003, our Board of Directors has authorized $11 billion of share repurchases of our common stock through December 31, 2021. The share repurchase authority has no set expiration or termination date. In February 2022, our Board of Directors authorized the Company to repurchase an additional $1 billion of our common stock, which is in addition to the $0.7 billion that was available as of December 31, 2021 under our share repurchase program.

(B)Includes: (1) shares delivered or attested to in satisfaction of the exercise price and/or tax withholding obligations by holders of stock options (granted under the Company's Amended and Restated Employee Long-Term Incentive Plan) who exercised options; and (2) shares withheld (under the terms of grants under the Amended and Restated Employee Long-Term Incentive Plan) to offset tax withholding obligations that occur upon the delivery of outstanding common shares underlying restricted share units and performance share units.

(C)Includes the reclassification of $300 million from additional paid-in capital to treasury stock and the final delivery of 1,640,193 shares associated with the completion of the April 2021 accelerated share repurchase agreements ("ASRs"). See Note 16 to the audited consolidated financial statements for further information regarding the ASRs.

Performance Graph

Set forth below is a line graph comparing the cumulative total shareholder return on Quest Diagnostics' common stock since December 31, 2016 based on the market price of the Company's common stock and assuming reinvestment of dividends, with the cumulative total shareholder return of companies on the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Stock Index and the S&P 500 Health Care (Sector) Index.