Item 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and traded under the symbol SHW. The number of shareholders of record at January 31, 2021 was 5,431. The information regarding securities authorized for issuance under the Company’s equity compensation plans is set forth in our Proxy Statement under the caption “Equity Compensation Plan Information” and is incorporated by reference into Part III of this report.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

The following table sets forth a summary of the Company’s purchases of common stock during the fourth quarter of 2020.

(1)Shares were purchased through the Company’s publicly announced share repurchase program. The Company had remaining authorization at December 31, 2020 to purchase 4,550,000 shares. On February 17, 2021, the Board of Directors authorized the Company to purchase an additional 15,000,000 shares of the Company’s stock for treasury purposes. There is no expiration date specified for the program.

(2)All shares were delivered to satisfy the exercise price and/or tax withholding obligations by employees who exercised stock options or had shares of restricted stock vest.

(3)In 2019, 300,000 shares were transferred from the Company’s terminated domestic defined benefit plan surplus assets to a suspense account held within a trust for the qualified replacement plan. In accordance with ASC 715, the transferred shares are treated as treasury stock. In the three months ended December 31, 2020, 175,000 of the shares were sold.

Comparison of Cumulative Total Return

The following graph compares the cumulative total shareholder return on Sherwin-Williams common stock with the cumulative five-year total return of the companies listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index and the peer groups of companies selected on a line-of-business basis. For 2020, the Company revised its 2019 self-selected peer group to remove USG Corporation (as a result of its acquisition in 2019) and add Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. The cumulative five-year total return assumes $100 was invested on December 31, 2015 in Sherwin-Williams common stock, the S&P 500 and the 2019 and 2020 peer groups. The cumulative five-year total return, including reinvestment of dividends, represents the cumulative value through December 31, 2020.

2020 peer group of companies comprised of the following: Akzo Nobel N.V., Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., BASF SE, Genuine Parts Company, H.B. Fuller Company, The Home Depot, Inc., Lowe’s Companies, Inc., Masco Corporation, Newell Brands Inc., PPG Industries, Inc., RPM International Inc., and Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

2019 peer group of companies comprised of the following: Akzo Nobel N.V., BASF SE, Genuine Parts Company, H.B. Fuller Company, The Home Depot, Inc., Lowe’s Companies, Inc., Masco Corporation, Newell Brands Inc., PPG Industries, Inc., RPM International Inc., Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. and USG Corporation (included through April 2019 when it was acquired by Gebr. Knauf KG).