There was an incredible amount of cash on the sidelines that was just waiting for a signal to pour back into the market back in late 2010. When it did come back in, investors scooped up stocks that had shown strength through the volatility and stocks with strong earnings and fundamentals.

This year, cash is once again king — but for a different reason.

This time around it’s the corporations that have the cash, and it’s what they’re doing with it that will help us finish out the year on a strong note.

Companies have been hoarding cash because of all the uncertainty in the market. They weren’t eager to replenish their workforce, choosing instead to automate their systems and implement new technology that is faster and cheaper.

Now some of the biggest stocks on Wall Street find themselves with a ton of cash, and they’re using that money to buy up the competition as well as companies that were previously their technology and service providers. Just look at Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility and AT&T (NYSE:T) ants its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile, and you can see that cash is burning a whole in corporate coffers. And while the Justice Department’s opposition to the AT&T/T-Mobile merger does paint a picture that the Obama administration is anti-business, I don’t see an end to the merger mania anytime soon. And this trend puts the market in a good mood. Investors love a good takeover story, and it makes them start searching for the next one.

Now, I would love to be able to identify the next 10 acquisition targets, buy the whole lot and watch my shares skyrocket as one after the other gets gobbled up. It’s just not that simple, and you can wait for years and be stuck in antitrust litigation just like AT&T when you play that game. But what we can do is buy up companies that are innovators in their industries and are bringing new products and services to market, knowing that this will make them very attractive takeover candidates. Either way, in this scenario we win.

And there is a second way that companies are spending their mountains of cash that we can profit from as well — corporate buybacks.

So many CFOs have rushed to boost their corporate bond sales in recent months that we’ve seen the pace quicken from some $20 billion-per-week pace to a high of almost $60 billion in recent weeks. Since many companies can borrow at 3% or less, CFOs are using this incredibly cheap money to buy back their stock. When they do this, they reduce the number of shares on the market and thus naturally increase earnings per share (EPS).

While companies can buy back their shares whenever they want, it makes sense for them to hurry up and do it now before the next quarter ends so they don’t miss their opportunity to boost earnings in the current reporting period. This is exactly what happened in late June when the market rallied. Corporations were buying up stock, which made investors want to do the same, and we saw the market rise 500 points from June 15 to the end of the month. That was a 4.3% move for the Dow.

Between the potential for acquisitions and the earnings-boosting nature of stock buybacks, look to cash-rich companies to make the biggest news in the fourth quarter — either through deals or with further earnings surprises.