Corporate Buyback Machine Steps Into High Gear

Corporate treasury departments were busy yesterday with the Dow down nearly 300 points at one point before rallying back to the flat-line.

Goldman Sachs' corporate agency desk, which executes buybacks for clients, had its busiest day since 2011 on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported citing a note from the unit. It was record day for volume based on the value of the equities purchased, the note said, which was confirmed by Goldman spokeswoman Tiffany Galvin.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has one of the largest buybacks going, with $50 billion renaming in its ongoing $140 billion share repurchase plan as of June 27, 2015. With its recent earnings report, Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) authorized a $4 billion buyback plan. Some other large buyback plans include AIG's (NYSE: AIG) $5 billion, Mondelez's (NYSE: MDLZ) $6 billion, United Airlines' (NYSE: UAL) $3 billion, Corining's (NYSE: GLW) $2 billion, Caterpillar's (NYSE: CAT) $1.5 billion, among countless others.

Notably, with earnings season now mostly over for S&P 500 companies the window for buybacks has opened up again for these firms.

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