Amgen recently announced a $5 billion dollar buyback which adds to its prior plan. Amgen Inc. has completed its purchase of privately held Alantos Pharmaceuticals, the company said Monday. Cambridge, Mass.-based Alantos develops drugs for the treatment of diabetes and inflammatory diseases. The deal was announced June 6. The deal gives Amgen the DPP-IV inhibitor that Alantos has in clincal development phase 2a for the treatment of type II diabetes and also gives it Alantos' matrix metalloproteinases platform for osteoarthritis. Thousand Oaks-based Amgen (AMGN) discovers, develops and delivers human therapeutics. Amgen trades for 10x cash flow.

Halliburton recently announced a $2 billion dollar buyback which adds to its prior plan. Halliburton (HAL) upgraded at Credit Suisse to an Outperform rating as negative perceptions are peaking, and solid cyclical fundamentals should eventually outweigh bearish expectations for North American pressure pumping business. Target price raised to $43. HAL trades for 8x cash flow.

H.B. Fuller recently announced a $100 million dollar buyback. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services recently backed H.B. Fuller Co.'s investment-grade rating, shortly after the company announced the $100 million buyback. FUL trades for 8x cash flow.

General Electric, the world's second largest company by market value, doubled its stock buyback program to $14 billion, and plans to repurchase $12 billion by the end of the year. The industrial, finance and media conglomerate reported a 9.6% surge in second quarter earnings with profits of $5.42 billion or 53 cents a share, up from $4.95 billion or 48 cents a share a year ago. The company’s revenue rose 12%, to $42.3 billion from $37.7 billion a year earlier. GE noted its strong performers throughout the quarter were oil, gas, aviation, energy, and commercial finance businesses. General Electric also announced it will get rid of its subprime unit, WMC Mortgage, after the branch reported a $160 million loss. This move by GE is a way for the company to get out of the dreadful subprime environment. WMC Mortgage has dumped $3.7 billion of its subprime mortgage portfolio but still has $1.1 billion remaining. GE's CEO and Chairman Jeff Immelt told analysts, "With our strong orders and momentum, we are forecasting third quarter EPS from continuing operations of $.54-.56, up 15-19% over comparable 2006 earnings. We are reaffirming guidance for the full year and are on track to deliver a solid, low-risk performance in 2007 with high visibility to organic growth. We are increasing our 2007 share repurchase program to $14 billion, with the remaining $12 billion to be allocated over the second half of the year. The Board of Directors increased the program, announced in 2004, to $27 billion and accelerated it by a year to be completed by the end of 2007.” An analyst at UBS offers some more positive reinforcement about GE as they maintain their BUY rating on the company and boosted its target price from $45 to $47. The analyst mentions the company's Commercial Financial Services and Infrastructure segments reported second quarter results way ahead of expectations. UBS was also glad to see 8% organic growth and the increased buyback plan.

Paychex announced a $1 billion dollar buyback. Goldman Sachs analyst Elizabeth Grausam said the news should lift the stock, which has underperformed year-to-date. "As one of the few companies not participating in the heated leveraged buyout speculation across the processing sector, we believe this announcement should provide additional support for the shares," Grausam wrote. PAYX has a PE ratio of 23.

The President of the Merchandising Group recently purchased 99,000 shares or $1,985,000 worth of stock. BAMM trades for 5.5x cash flow.

Next on the list is ConocoPhillips. The nation’s third-largest oil company authorized a $15 billion buyback program through 2008 that includes $2 billion left over from the $4 billion plan put into action in February. Shareholders may consider the buyback as a positive for the stock since it shows management's commitment to return more cash to shareholders. It is also comforting to know that COP can afford it. After looking at COP's free cash flow, asset sales and compensation from its Venezuela production, a buyback of this size is easily within their means. Houston's oil giant reported first quarter net income of $3.5 billion or $2.12 a share and revenue was $41.3 billion. “Operating performance for the quarter was consistent with our plans and we continued to progress the execution of our financial strategy,” said Jim Mulva, chairman and chief executive officer. “With respect to our upstream operations, we produced 2.47 million BOE per day, including an estimated 0.45 million BOE per day from our LUKOIL Investment segment. In our downstream business, the crude oil capacity utilization rate was 94 percent during the quarter." Bernstein Research re-iterated an outperform rating on ConocoPhillips stressing the enhanced buyback program. Bernstein feels that the buyback will have two positive affects on the stock. First, they feel the divestment strategy will focus investor attention on the fact that management is aiming to enhance shareholder value. Secondly, and equally important, with a buyback of this size, the directors are basically telling the shareholders they will not sell the company, at least not in the near term. "ConocoPhillips has constantly lived under a dark acquisition cloud since the Burlington transaction," Bernstein says, but now shareholders should be relieved from that fear- at least for the next 18 months. The analysts raised their price target to $95 from $88.

Johnson & Johnson recently announced a $10 billion dollar buyback. On Tuesday, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) reported earnings of $3.1 billion, or $1.05 a share, for the quarter in comparison to $2.9 billion, or 98 cents a share, in 2006, and the Thomson Financial consensus target of $1 a share. The company maintained its full-year profit forecast of $4.02 per share to $4.07 per share. JNJ trades for 11x cash flow.