Treasury Stock

From time to time, our Board of Directors authorizes management to repurchase shares of our issued and outstanding common stock on the open market. Repurchases may be made whenever we deem a repurchase to be a good use of our cash and the repurchase enhances shareholder value. As of September 30, 2017, we had 114,271 shares available for repurchase on the open market under the Board's authorizations. On October 23, 2017, our Board increased these repurchase authorizations by 300,000 shares bringing the total authorization as of the approval date to 386,434 shares. Shares may also be tendered by employees to satisfy tax withholding obligations in connection with the vesting of restricted stock.

Repurchased shares of our common stock were as follows:



	Nine Months Ended September 30,
(In thousands)	2017		2016
Shares repurchased	330		40
Cost of shares repurchased	$	20,217	$	2,188

Repurchased shares are recorded as shares held in treasury at cost. We hold these shares for future use as management and the Board of Directors deem appropriate, which has included compensating our outside directors.