Yahoo! Thursday announced the approval of a $3 billion common stock buyback initiative, which comes on the heels of several product announcements over the last week including Yahoo! 360, a blog and
social networking service, and the beta of Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons, which lets users search original works that have been shared by authors.
Merrill Lynch released a statement
regarding the buyback program, describing it as "a positive." The buyback comes after the expiration of another $500 million buyback, which began in March 2001. A Merrill Lynch analyst wrote in her
report that the buyback demonstrates Yahoo!'s cash flow generation ability and a confident management, and will help support the stock and slow dilution from the exercise of stock options.
--Shankar Gupta