A steady scan of the financial headlines these days implies that it's the golden era of dividend investing.

But it's not true.

Though many companies are boosting their dividends at a solid pace, dividend yields remain far below the levels seen back in the 1970s. Back then, companies earmarked the vast majority of their profits for dividends. Today, payout ratios usually hover below 35%.

If one investment theme is surely at a high point, it's stock buybacks. As I noted two months ago, companies have bought back more than $1 trillion since 2009, and the pace of buyback activity has actually grown stronger in 2012 and 2013.

The timing is curious. The market has posted impressive gains since bottoming out more than four years ago, and many stocks are trading near all-time highs. In the past, companies would only pursue large stock buybacks when their shares were in the doghouse.

Still, it's worth tracking any buybacks plans that promise to retire 10% or even 15% of the current share count. And in the current earnings season, we've seen a fresh batch of hefty plans that fulfill that mandate. Here are a dozen companies, each sporting a market value of at least $1 billion, which have a chance to make a meaningful dent in their share counts.