Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Bob Napoli of Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead, sir.
Bob Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Thank you, nice quarter and congratulations for positioning the company for just this kind of an environment. Question on share count. What is the end of period share count?
Rhonda Johnson
The share count is that, we show the average share count and that's 50.9 million for the third quarter.
Bob Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Right. And what was the September 30th share count?
Rhonda Johnson
It should be somewhere around 49 million or 50 million shares.
Bob Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Okay.
Rhonda Johnson
We don't give the exact number. That's not a public number until the Q comes out in the next couple weeks.
Bob Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Okay.
Bob Lyons
Bob, if you're inquiring about whether or not we repurchased any stock during the third quarter, the answer to that was no, we were not active.
Bob Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Okay. Just following in line with that is, given that you have been very diligent on your pricing metrics for the opportunities that are out there and your leverage is low in this very stressed capital markets environment. But with the low leverage you have, do you intend to re-enter the market on buybacks at this time or will you wait?
Bob Lyons
We still have the authorization in place, as you might recall. It was a $200 million authorization under which we completed approximately $75 million in the first quarter. We haven't been active in the last couple of quarters and we're trying to preserve some of that capital for investment opportunities and I don't think that position will change here in the near term, Bob.
We still believe there's going to be some opportunities out there and it's prudent to maintain that capital discipline at this point in time.
Bob Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Okay. In Europe, what changes are you seeing in Europe and how much of an effect does currency have?
Bob Lyons
Currency impact, Bob, if you are talking '07 to '08, it's been quite favorable. Until recently, obviously the euro was up in the 140, 150 range for quite a period of time and we had versus '07 roughly a $6 million pickup from that income, from that currency, the weak dollar in 2008. Obviously, that's reversed here recently with the dollar strengthening quite a bit.
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