S&P Dow Jones Indices ("S&P DJI") today announced preliminary results indicating that S&P 500® stock buybacks, or share repurchases, totaled $190.6 billion for Q2 2018, displacing the prior quarterly record of $189.1 billion, set during Q1 2018. This is a 58.7% increase from the $120.1 billion reported for Q2 2017. For the first half of 2018, buybacks are up 49.9% to $379.7 billion from the prior year's $253.3 billion.

Broadcom Ltd (NASDAQ:AVGO) traded in a range yesterday that spanned from a low of $234.87 to a high of $241.03. Yesterday, the shares gained 2.0%, which took the trading range above the 3-day high of $240.30 on volume of 2.0 million shares. Often times after large one-day gains, short term traders will seek to take profits and, as such, investors should be cautious.

Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) today announced Thor, a new 200G Ethernet controller with 50G PAM-4 and PCIe 4.0, designed for high performance computing, networking and storage applications including machine learning, storage disaggregation, and data analytics. Building upon the success of the widely-deployed NetXtreme(R) E-Series architecture, Broadcom's Thor combines a high-bandwidth Ethernet controller with a unique set of highly optimized hardware acceleration engines to enhance network performance and improve server efficiency.