Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) recently up $2.40 to $33.74:

www.Alibaba.com, a Chinese internet company, is expected to be IPO'd on the Hong Kong bourse on November 6th. YHOO made a $1.4 billion investment in 39% of Alibaba in 2005. YHOO Chairman of the Board Terry Semel sold 850,000 shares of YHOO at $30.47 October 23-24, according to Dow Jones. YHOO call option volume of 503,701 contracts compares to put volume of 52,600 contracts. YHOO November option implied volatility of 50 is above its 26-week average of 37 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risk.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) recently up $2.91 to $34.90:

Pacific Growth Equities says " Blowout F1Q results; conservative guidance leave room for additional upside if the sales momentum continues." MSFT call option volume of 353,588 contracts compares to put volume of 114,142 contracts. MSFT November option implied volatility of 25 is below a pre-EPS level of 32 according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing risk.

Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

Option update 10-26-007: YHOO and MSFT rally with YHOO volatility up, MSFT volatility down originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) reported results last night, showing revenue up 11% at $59 million. Operating income was under $13 million. The company has a market cap of $2.3 billion.

Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) and Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU) both reported results last month. Revenue gains were fine, but the base is still tiny. Baidu, the largest search engine in China, had a profit of only $19 million. But, it sports a market cap of $6.6 billion. It trades at 42 times revenue, compared to Google at less than 12x.

Therein lies the mystery. China has over 130 million web users, putting it second only to the U.S. But the revenue generated from its major web portals remains remarkably small.

The issue also points to whether valuations for these companies are much, much too high. It will take them a long time to become as big as Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) which has a market cap of $30 billion.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Will China's dot-com bubble burst? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As corporations grow into multinationals, they have to learn to play in ball in international settings that may have their own set of rules. It's a tricky game and public opinion is the only referee.

Yahoo! learned how running afoul of those different rules could hurt it at home when stories surfaced about Yahoo! giving information to Chinese government officials that helped it jail dissidents.

On a server in the US someone can mock the president or the government all they want and only worry that they will upset their peers. But abroad, some governments seem to think humility and criticism aren't worthy qualities. Chinese officials sit in front of computers monitoring any movement on keyword searches on the terms 'freedom' and 'democracy.'

What's Yahoo! to do? Ignore international markets while others worm their way in, break the laws of the country, or resist and get possibly get kicked out?

Yahoo! chose to get into the second-biggest Internet market in the world and followed its laws. But back in the US people got ticked, and the Internet buzzed with outrage to see a company they use on a daily basis roll over and give up the data.

Now Yahoo! is going to the US government to ask for help to figure out how to dance this delicate dance without tripping.

Yahoo! Looks to US government to help with overseas censorship issues originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 12 May 2006 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.