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Pastimes : Ask Mohan about the Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (15546)	4/24/1998 11:09:00 AM
From: HB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18056

Zeev, perhaps options and buybacks are not completely separate.... buying back the shares may allow a company to issue options without having to file with the SEC about an increase in the number of authorized shares, and get stockholder approval. Not that it's usually a big deal to get approval, but it does point out to all the stockholders that you're doing something potentially dilutive! But I guess options plans often require stockholder approval too. This is probably not that big of an issue, but it suggests that when you see big buybacks, you should check the company's history to see if the buybacks actually decreased the total number of shares (IBM?), or were just recycled in options (MSFT?). Love the MRK example <G>!!! Would you consider buying puts to protect MRK? HB