From Barron's 6-25-07: "On June 4, PALM, maker of handheld computers and the Treo smartphone, announced a strategic relationship and a recapitalization plan to help it sharpen its competitive edge against the likes of Nokia, Research in Motion (which makes BlackBerry devices), Motorola, Samsung and Apple. Palm (PALM) plans to sell 25% of itself to private-equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million of a new series of convertible preferred stock and to install Jon Rubenstein, who ran the iPod division of Apple from 2004 to 2006, as executive chairman. Palm also plans to pay its investors a $9 dividend.

From Barron's 6-25-07: " Home Depot (HD) plans to buy back up to another $22.5 billion worth of its shares. That gives its current program a value of $40 billion, which shareholders hope will rev up the company's lackluster stock price...Home Depot pays a quarterly dividend of 22.5 cents a share and yields 2.26%.

From Barron's 6-25-07: "GateHouse Media (GHS), one of the largest publishers of locally based print and online media across 20 states, hiked its quarterly common dividend for the second time this year, to 40 cents a share from 37 cents (up in March from 24 cents), for an 8.46% yield."

From Barron's 6-25-07: "Darden Restaurants (DRI), the world's largest casual-dining company (the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains are among its eateries), will now pay a quarterly dividend on its common of 18 cents a share, or 72 cents annually, versus a semiannual payout of 23 cents, or 46 cents a year. That's a 56.5% increase. Yield: 1.66%. Darden has spent $2.62 billion on stock buybacks since December 1995."

From Barron's 6-25-07: "Winnebago Industries (WGO), one of the nation's biggest manufacturers of motor homes, boosted its quarterly payout to 12 cents a share from a dime and announced a new $60 million stock buyback. Since year-end 1997, the company has repurchased 24.4 million shares for some $356.8 million."