Companies are in the business of making cash profit. After they accumulate a pile of cash, there are a number of ways to use it (legally): plowing-back in the business, paying out as dividend, and/or buying back shares. In reality, managers have a lot of discretion in the timing of these actions, not necessarily achieving the optimal timing.

It seems company buyback is back to fashion. On March 15th, PepsiCo announced it would buy $15 billion of its shares by June 2013, including $4.4 billion this year. Even before Pepsi’s announcement, buy-backs unveiled this year had already reached $65 billion, nearly half of 2009’s total of $137 billion, according to Citigroup. Companies, as a group were much more active in buying back their shares in 2006 and 2007, when the market were much higher.

Company buying back its shares alone is not a sufficient reason for you to follow suit. Like in a puzzle, each piece alone is not a solution, it only contributes to the solution. In Gurufocus’s arsenal, we have quite a few pieces that contribute to the your investment decision puzzle: we have information on whether Investment Gurus are purchasing a stock, whether company insiders are purchasing a stock, and whether a company is purchasing its own stocks.

We actually have a tool that enable one to screen for stocks that possess these three pieces of the puzzle together. It is called Triple Buy. A year ago, the tool hardly yielded any results; today, we see plenty of companies that have seen buying activities from Investment Guru, Company Insiders, and Company Buyback.

Because the tool is premium member feature. In fairness to people who paid for the service, I only include a sub-list of the complete result, No .11 to 15 of the comprehensive list.

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Tickers in the article:

Company /tdtd width="96" valign="bottom" width:1.0in;border:solid="" white="" 1.0pt;="" border-left:none;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" background:#f5f8fd;padding:3.0pt="" 3.0pt="" 3.0pt"=""> Number of Guru Buys	Number of Insiders Buys /tdtd width="112" valign="bottom" width:83.95pt;border:solid="" white="" 1.0pt;="" border-left:none;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" background:#f5f8fd;padding:3.0pt="" 3.0pt="" 3.0pt"=""> Rate of Share Buyback (%) ↓
PRLS /tdtd width="198" valign="top" width:148.85pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> Peerless Systems Corp.	/tdtd width="108" valign="top" width:81.0pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 1	/td/trtrtd valign="top" border:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:="" solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;="" padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> MHGC	MORGANS HOTEL GROUP CO. /tdtd width="96" valign="top" width:1.0in;border-top:none;border-left:none;="" border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 1	/tdtd width="112" valign="top" width:83.95pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 4.6%
HI /tdtd width="198" valign="top" width:148.85pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> HILLENBRAND INC	/tdtd width="108" valign="top" width:81.0pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 1	/td/trtrtd valign="top" border:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:="" solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;="" padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> EDGW	Edgewater Technology Inc. /tdtd width="96" valign="top" width:1.0in;border-top:none;border-left:none;="" border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 1	/tdtd width="112" valign="top" width:83.95pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 4.3%
CRWS /tdtd width="198" valign="top" width:148.85pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> Crown Crafts Inc	/tdtd width="108" valign="top" width:81.0pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;padding:3.0pt="" 1.5pt="" 3.0pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 1

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