Is Time Warner repurchasing shares again?

In the recent weeks, with a weaker market, there is one firm that may have started buying Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) shares aggressively: Itself. On the Friday before the weekend there were 42 million shares that traded hands, well above the 23.8 million daily average. Some can try pointing to the UBS "BUY" rating with the rumors that it would sell-off the AOL unit. How many times has this rumor been there, and then denied? Too many.

As shares climbed toward $20 last year and then continued chugging forward, the pressure for CEO Richard Parsons to keep gobbling up shares was lightening with each dollar rise. Now Icahn is out, for all practical purposes, and the only shareholders that can really be raising issues are shareholders who have been in the stock for a long time.

The day of the UBS "BUY" rating, TWX traded 42.8 million shares and only closed up a whopping $0.04 to $19.48. Yesterday the stock closed up $0.16 at $19.64 on only 21.1 million shares. But today, TWX closed up more than 3% on almost 32 million shares and is now at $20.25 The Motley Fool also dispels these AOL spin-off or sale rumors.