This year is poised to be the first since 2008 that companies spend more on dividends and buybacks than they take in through earnings. Should share repurchases remain steady from a year ago, companies in the S&P 500 will send $935 billion out the door to shareholders, compared with analyst forecasts for $914 billion in profits.

“It absolutely parallels a slowdown in earnings,” said Jim McDonald, the chief investment strategist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp., which oversees $946 billion. “It’s companies being prudent, preserving capital when future cash flow is uncertain.”

CEOs are already doing everything they can to keep shareholders happy amid the weakest economic recovery since World War II. The proportion of cash flow used for stock repurchases and dividends rose to about 50 percent in 2014 from less than 30 percent a decade ago while it slipped for capital investments, data compiled by Barclays Plc show.

At the same time, cracks are forming in corporate funding. The amount of money available from savings and cash flow trailed outlays for plants and equipment in the second quarter by the most in seven years, according to Federal Reserve data that tracks all non-financial U.S. corporations.

Stable returns have helped bolster stocks at a time when 10-year Treasury yields are stuck around 2 percent. At Friday’s close, the S&P 500’s dividend yield was 2.1 percent, presenting a premium that contrasts with the last 45 years, when the government debt offered rates averaging 3.7 percentage points higher.

While CEOs are reining in dividends partly because they prefer other cash uses like buybacks as a way to boost per-share earnings, the retreat won’t be enough to prompt investors to shun stocks, according to Daniel Genter of RNC Genter Capital Management.

“It’d be nice to grow faster, but is it going to be a reason to vacate a stock that’s yielding 5 percent to go into a Treasury bond that pays 2 percent?” said Genter, who oversees about $4.2 billion as chief executive officer at the Los Angeles-based firm. “The answer is no.”

Since 2009, companies in the S&P 500 have paid out $1.8 trillion in dividends, almost double the amount in the five-year bull market through 2007. Cash returns soared as earnings jumped to a record over the past 6 1/2 years, a period that coincided with a 200 percent increase in American stocks.