Amgen is a weird stock. The company had excellent news during the year, capped by FDA approval of its Vectibix cancer drug. But the stock trades at $68.46, closer to its 52-week low of $63.52 than it high of $81.24. Short interest in the stock fell 6 million shares to 27.6 million in December.

Amgen suffers from the malaise that has hit all Big Pharma and biotech companies. Generics are going to put them out of business. Bulls would counter that Amgen has five major drugs in the pipeline that should yield extremely strong results.

Amgen’s board has authorized a $5 billion share buyback.

Maybe Wall St. is getting a message.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.