Mixed market messages as big companies put record $ into buybacks

U.S. companies are spending record sums repurchasing their own stock, a move that could boost per-share earnings of many at a time when the stock market has been gyrating, often downward. The companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index -- generally the biggest in the U.S. -- plowed more than $100 billion into their own shares in the first quarter, up more than 22% from a year earlier, according to data to be released today by S&P, a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos. In the year ended March 31, they spent a record $367 billion on so-called stock buybacks, an amount so large it could cover this year's Medicare budget...The onslaught of buybacks has been made possible by record corporate earnings, and is partly motivated by pressure from investors impatient with skimpy returns on their stocks. Read the whole article HERE