First American Corp. said Tuesday it plans to repurchase an additional $300 million worth of stock. The business-information services company has $60 million remaining from an existing $500 million buyback authorization. The stock trades for 3.5x cash flow.

Financial services company Life Partners Holdings Inc. said last week its board authorized the buyback of up to one million shares of its own stock. The stock trades for 8.5x cash flow.

Steakhouse chain Morton's Restaurant Group Inc. said Tuesday its board of directors approved a plan to buy back up to $4 million of the company's stock. The company said it will determine the timing and amount of the repurchases based on market conditions and other factors. Morton's said it will fund the purchases using its cash balances and its revolving credit facility. The stock trades for 6x cash flow.

A good way to decide what to invest in is to take cue from insider purchases. Sinclair Broadcast Group has recently been the subject of insiders buying up shares. Following years of inactivity, insiders have recently shown a lot of enthusiasm for Sinclair's shares. CEO David Smith bought 123,000 shares last week at a price of $7.90 to $7.99. Vice President Frederick Smith purchased more than 98,000 shares at a price range of $7.89-$8.00. Sinclair beat Wall Street expectations in the third quarter with total revenues up 6% at $176.7 million. However, its net broadcast revenue from continuing operations was almost flat, and net income dropped 56% to $9.9 million, or 11 cents per share. Despite the decline in earnings, Sinclair raised its annual dividend by 10 cents to 70 cents per share, yielding an industry-leading 8.40%. Broadcast revenue was hurt by lower political advertisement spending as compared to 2006. Despite the earnings decline in the third quarter, Sinclair's results were ahead of expectations. I expect the company to report improved revenue and earnings results for the fourth quarter. I am a fan of Sinclair for a couple of reasons. TV broadcasters and print media companies have suffered a similar fate, with their advertisement revenue being eroded by the shift in advertising to the Internet. However, this year holds a lot of promise, with the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the Beijing Olympics 2008. Sinclair, which claims to reach 22% of all U.S. television households in 35 markets, is in a strong position to benefit from these events. Referring to the opportunities being offered this year by the elections and the Beijing Olympics, Benchmark Co. analyst Edward Atorino, who has a buy rating on Sinclair, says he expects broadcast companies to "surprise people in terms of earnings growth."

Insider purchases can often be viewed as people inside the company seeing value in their own stock. Goodrich Petroleum is one such company that has recently seen some active insider purchases. Director Josiah Austin bought 270,000 shares of the company in December for a price range of between $22.54 and $23.50. CEO Walter Goodrich purchased 10,900 shares for a price range of $22.49-$23.86. COO Robert Turnham also bought shares last month. And while the insider purchases caught my attention, there are other reasons to like this company. The company reported 14% sequential growth and 40% annualized growth in average net production volumes to 46,500 Mcf per day for the third quarter. Cash flows climbed 71% from last year's levels to $19.2 million. However, Goodrich recorded a net loss of $23.7 million, or 0.94 cents per basic share, as compared to a net income of $6.7 million, or 27 cents per basic share, in the year-ago quarter. The company plunged to the black due to $14.8 million of non-cash adjustments to deferred tax asset. In early December, the company offered an additional 5.8-million-share public offering, generating net proceeds of about $145.4 million. Goodrich plans to use most of the proceeds to repay debt. The company has been actively implementing cost controls, while increasing its production, which will likely boost earnings. Analyst Ellen Hannan of Bear Stearns issued an outperform rating on the company, but reduced the price target to $34. Hannan said in a note to clients that "a continued ramp up in production volumes, coupled with declining costs, could support a higher price objective beyond year-end 2008."

Overstock.com Inc. said Tuesday it has approved a $20 million two-year stock and debt repurchase program. The online retailer said it will buy back stock and convertible senior notes in open market transactions.

During the uncertain times that we are facing, how do we decide which stocks to invest in? The uncertainties have resulted in some stocks being inexpensive, and you can buy into them at a fairly good price. Buybacks and insider purchases are good indicators. Embarq recently announced a share buyback. Embarq's board approved a buyback of up to $500 million, representing 7% of the company's outstanding shares. The buyback is to run through June 30, 2009. Apart from the board, CEO Daniel Hesse also seems to be vouching for Embarq's shares -- he bought 5,000 shares of the company in November at an average price of $50. Embarq, which was created by Sprint-Nextel's spinoff of its local phone operations, said its third-quarter net operating revenues declined marginally to $1.47 billion, while net income fell to $157 million. Revenues of both the telecommunications and logistics units declined. However, the company raised its quarterly dividend 10% to 68.75 cents (yielding 6%), marking the second quarterly hike in less than a year. The wireline sector has been under pressure from growth in wireless and VoIP systems. Michael Rollins of Citigroup said in a December report that telecom companies were losing residential phone subscribers to VoIP and wireless offerings at a steady rate of 7% to 8% a year. He added that VoIP penetration could rise to 25% in 2010, from 10% in 2006, while the number of wireless-only households is likely to rise to 27% from 13%. In mid-December, JPMorgan upgraded its rating on Embarq to overweight from neutral.

The New York based jewelry store said it will add $500 million to its buyback plan, bringing the total amount of shares authorized for repurchase to $637 million. In the decision, the board also extended the expiration date to January 31, 2011. During the last quarter of 2007, Tiffany’s board bought back shares at an unusually high rate. Since November 1st, they spent $400 million repurchasing 8.9 million shares. With 127 million shares outstanding the new buyback plan will represent 12% of the company’s market cap. Tiffany’s Chairman and CEO, Michael J. Kowalski, said, "This new authorization clearly expresses our Board’s confidence in Tiffany’s business and growth potential, and enables us to continue to opportunistically repurchase shares and return excess capital to stockholders." In the third quarter, TIF experienced robust sales growth as its profits more then tripled reaching $98.9 million or 71 cents a share. The sale of its Tokyo store helped fuel these gains but even with out the sale, TIF still earned 23 cents a share, surpassing the street's expectations. On a less positive note, Tiffany's numbers during the holiday season were dismal, forcing the company to slash guidance. International same- store sales grew by a mere 5% while U.S. same-store sales dropped 2%. This made Tiffany’s lower its full year guidance to $2.25-$2.28 a share; and consequentially TIF shares responded with 11% selloff. However, management is still positive about the year ahead and will continue its store expansion at a rate between 12% and 15%. Plenty of analysts, including JMP Securities, Cowen and Company, Pali Research and Bear Stearns all agreed that TIF is a good stock deserving an outperform or buy rating and that investors should capitalize on its cheapness, but price targets had to be trimmed to reflect slow, but not dead, sales.