David Hughes, a Director of the company has recently purchased 12,000 shares or $1,008,374 worth of stock. SunTrust Banks Inc. announced in mid-April that Q1 profits were off by 3% although came in ahead of Wall Street expectations. The company said that mortgage losses contributed to the weaker earnings as well as the current interest rate environment which is hurting its core lending business. Despite the slow quarter, SunTrust is a well run bank and has a lot of smart investors backing it including T. Rowe Price which owns 2% of the stock and none other than Warren Buffett who does know a thing or 2 about regional banks. This particular T. Rowe Price fund has a long term approach and has racked up positive returns for 15 consecutive years including an average annual return of 13% over the last decade. In a recent Fortune article in which the fund was picked as one of 7 to own in 2007, the author pointed out that the fund’s “extra-cautious mindset is exactly why losing money hasn't been much of an issue throughout the fund's history.” This is the type of fund we like to see when digging deeper on a stock such as STI. And of course, knowing Buffett is a holder should give all those looking at the stock a little comfort as well. It’s good to know STI has classic long term investors because SunTrust also has a long term plan. One in which the company plans on $400 million in cost savings over the next 5 years. You may not see a bump anytime soon but when the environment for banks in general improves you should start to see more top line revenue at STI fall to the bottom line as a result of a leaner cost structure. It seems that both management, who has been buying shares and T. Rowe Price believe this as well. If you want to check out other core holdings, including MSFT and TYC, you can see all of them here.

The CEO, CFO, and six Directors of the company have recently purchased 61,645 shares or $1,184,370 worth of stock. Security Bank Corporation operates as a multibank holding company that offers a range of community banking services in Georgia. Stock trades at an 11x forward PE

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Assoc. announced a $100 million dollar buyback which adds to its prior plan. Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates Inc., which engages in the design, manufacture, marketing, and servicing of semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits, hit a new 52 week high recently after the company posted second-quarter earnings that crushed Wall Street estimates, and revised Q3 guidance beyond prior estimates. The stock trades at a 20x forward PE.

IBM announced a $15 billion dollar buyback program last week. Despite a lot of pundits calling IBM the best blue chip out there at the beginning of the year, it is “only” up 5% year to date and trading at 8.5x EBITDA. As investors you like to see the Board at IBM step up like they did and increase their buyback program because they are telling you: we agree, our stock is cheap here. And the Board’s track record is pretty good. As you can see in our Mad Money Buybacks portfolio, IBM has bought back over 1.2 billion shares on a split-adjusted basis, at an average price of about $62 per share since the inception of its share repurchase program in 1995. IBM has also recently announced several initiatives in the areas of nanotechnology, its mainframe business and even social networking that may not be huge news but bodes well for the company over the long term. I was also interested to see that IBM is a component of the PowerShares Dynamic Deep Value Fund which “seeks to identify those stocks within the deep value market segment that have the greatest capital appreciation potential”. To check out other Dynamic Deep Value stocks, including MCD and CI, check out the PowerShares Dynamic Deep Value Fund page. And of course it’s always good to know when the best hedge fund in the world, Renaissance Technologies , also owns IBM.

Kevin Douglas, a 10% stakeholder in the company has recently purchased 140,000 shares or $707,219 worth of stock. IMAX Corporation, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, operates as an entertainment technology company, specializing in three-dimensional (3D) film presentations. The stock trades at 13x EBITDA.

Valero Energy announced a $4 billion dollar buyback which effectively tripled their buyback program from $2 billion to $6 billion. Valero Energy Corporation, which operates as a refining and retailing company, recently posted higher than expected earnings, outpacing Wall Street expectations by $.06 per share. CEO Bill Klesse said that “this year's shaping up so that it could be better than 2006.” In taking a deeper look at VLO, the one thing I liked was that one of my favorite investors, John Buckingham from the Al Frank fund owned VLO. Buckingham is a well known value investor who has a good eye for finding quality cheap stocks as is evidenced by his 16% annual returns since his fund’s inception in 1998. My guess is that Buckingham likes the recent strong quarter from VLO as well as the fact that it trades for 5x cash flow.

Pioneer Natural Resources announced a $450 million dollar buyback which adds to its prior plan. Pioneer Natural Resources Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the exploration and production of oil and gas primarily in the United States. The stock trades for about 9x cash flow.

Cymer announced a $300 million dollar buyback which replaces its prior plan. Cymer, Inc., which engages in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of light source solutions for the semiconductor industry, recently announced that Q1 earnings were flat and did not meet Wall Street expectations. The stock trades for about 8x cash flow.