Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), a web portal whose colleagues include Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL, reported Q1 numbers after the bell on Tuesday. According to an earnings preview done by colleague Mark Fightmaster, Wall Street was counting on something along the lines of 8 cents per share. Well, on a non-GAAP basis, Yahoo! earned 15 cents per share. Not bad.

Unfortunately, Yahoo! made three pennies more on the same adjusted basis in last year's similar quarter. Furthermore, revenues, adjusted for currency effects, dropped 8%. Oh, and one more thing. Free cash flow decreased over 60%.

Continue reading Can Yahoo!'s cursing CEO lead the company to victory?

Can Yahoo!'s cursing CEO lead the company to victory? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With only a day of trading remaining in February, stocks are poised to post another monthly loss. There have been very few stocks going higher in this very persistent bear market.

One exception to the rule has been Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO). Can you believe it?

Get rid of that nitwit Jerry Yang, and this stock is finally catching some tailwind.

Shares have gained more than $1 in value in February, as investors unwound short positions tied to the ineptitude of Chief Yahoo. In addition to short covering, shares caught a bid as buyers look to acquire shares at a discount in case a new deal for the company emerges.

Continue reading Microsoft still yearns for Yahoo

Microsoft still yearns for Yahoo originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), which competes with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL, reported Q4 stats after the bell on Tuesday. They were pretty dismal, but expectations were bea t. Revenues dipped by 1%, and earnings per share on an adjusted basis were $0.17. According to Wall Street's view, Yahoo! was only supposed to earn $0.13. A four-penny beat on the bottom line is a pretty good thing.

Or is it in this case? I would argue it's no big deal. I mean, we are talking about Yahoo! here, and there's a new CEO on the job, Carol Bartz. She replaced the disaster known as Jerry Yang. Considering that there's a new regime, you can't really rely on this beat as a proper indicator for what's to come.

Continue reading Can the new CEO change things at Yahoo!?

Can the new CEO change things at Yahoo!? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Carol Bartz expected to be named CEO of Yahoo! (YHOO) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Lately it's been very difficult for investors to get their bearings, but I can tell you that the winners in this game will be companies with little or no debt. Forget what stock values are doing now and focus on the future. You can take it to the bank that stocks gaining in value will have started from a very solid balance sheet foundation.

That said, I want to talk about Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Yesterday the company was in the news again with reports that former AOL chief Jon Miller is seeking capital to purchase YHOO outright for a price that is reported to be in the $20 range.

YHOO shares rocketed higher on the news, immediately jumping up by nearly $1 per share, or approximately 10%.

My initial reaction, as you might expect, was skeptical. Jump on this news as a chance to dump shares. Management at YHOO, with or without Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang, has destroyed shareholder value so much that it would be hard to believe that anyone would pay a premium for the stock.

How could it be that a lone ranger from the failed AOL model be considered a serious alternative to YHOO going it alone? It makes no sense until you take a closer look at YHOO fundamentals. There the story starts to get a little more interesting.

Continue reading Is Yahoo a screaming bargain without Jerry Yang?

Is Yahoo a screaming bargain without Jerry Yang? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We may have broken the ultimate barrier to diversity with the election of the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama, but the ranks of minorities in top positions at Fortune 500 companies remain thin and are steadily declining.

Late Monday, Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) CEO John Thompson announced plans to retire from the post in March, but will remain on as chairman. Also planning to move out of the corner office until a replacement is found is the CEO of struggling Web portal Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), Jerry Yang.

Their pending exits continue a string of other high-profile minority CEOs over the past year due to various reasons, ranging from Dick Parsons at Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), to Stan O'Neal at Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) to Alwyn Lewis at Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) and William Perez at Wrigley.

Continue reading Yang, Thompson departures to further diminish pool of minority CEOs

Yang, Thompson departures to further diminish pool of minority CEOs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I do not own shares of MSFT or YHOO.

MSFT/YHOO: Jerry Yang, are you kidding? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jerry Yang fires 10% of workforce in lowercase email originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

CEOs have been doing the old soft shoe at quarterly report time since the market first form, but dancing now seems to have become a favored pastime of CEOs include Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Jerry Yang of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and (surprise? hardly) Mark Cuban (also a yahoo).

Yang busted some moves recently dancing with the star of Where the Hell is Matt?, the outstanding internet feature following adventurer and dancer (I use the term loosely) Matt Harding. Don't miss the video at the end of this post, if you're not familiar with Matt. - it's perhaps the most charming, uplifting video I've seen in years.

Of course, who can forget Steve Ballmer's dance at the podium during a Microsoft presentation? And, of course, Mark, 'Gimme the Cubs" Cuban performing on Dancing with the Stars?

Come to think of it, many CEOs are already quite accomplished at performing the fan dance with their balance sheets. Ex-Gov. Spitzer has shown his fondness for the hustle and the shag, while Donald Rumsfeld is still waiting for the cakewalk to begin. Senator Craig seems to favor the swing, while President Bush appears dead-set on taking on the Persian Dance before he waltzes out of the White House.

And me? Having lived through the Vietnam Era, I'm doing the Time Warp again.

Thanks to Portfolio.com

CEOs practice the old soft shoe originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Large Yahoo shareholder raises questions about vote on Yang originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Corporate advertisers are not flocking to YouTube despite the fact that the video sharing site attracts one billion views a day, upsetting Google Inc's (NASDAQ: GOOG) expectations for a strong revenue stream, according to the Wall Street Journal. Total ad revenue for Google this year will be about $200M from the site, where the company is counting on growth beyond its text ads from Web searches.
• A day after Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) said it would be interested in reopening talks to acquire some of all of Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) if Carl Icahn's proxy battle succeeds, the Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang accused Microsoft of "trying to destabilize" the company "without a real desire to complete a deal".

• The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE: DAL), is set to cut 300 pilots and 220 flight attendants from its staff. The paper said the layoffs will go into effect in September when Comair cuts its flight schedule as part of Delta's capacity cuts and will affect crew members based at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

• Iran successfully test-launched a long-range version of its Shahab-3 missile, according to Iranian news service Al-Alam. The missile can reach U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf and Israel.

Newspaper wrap-up: Google has a difficult time getting ad revenue from YouTube originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There's no question that, at this point, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) needs to partner up with some company. I didn't see the logic behind the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) interest in Yahoo! I thought then -- and still think now -- that Microsoft didn't need a big brand in the Internet portal space. It's doing fine with its own MSN.com, its operating-system monopoly and current portfolio of investments.

However, I see the merit in a deal between Yahoo! and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). The following article discusses the possibility that Time Warner and Yahoo! are talking about a combination. Since Time Warner owns AOL, and since AOL has been transforming its business model over the last few years to capture a more advertising revenue, Time Warner would be wise to at least consider the transaction. Leveraging both brands would generate a lot of clout when it comes to advertisers, who would look at the platform as a must-buy to reach the surfing eyeballs.

There would be many other areas of synergy between the two companies and, of course, the potential to cut redundant costs. Or course, the deal would have to make financial sense and who knows if Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang will be reasonable.

I think we'll be hearing more about Time Warner and Yahoo! in the coming weeks. However, I don't think anyone should place trades in these stocks based on deal speculation. Buy them for other reasons, but not for purposes of gambling on potential headline news.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.

Time Warner and Yahoo!: A deal makes sense originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Can Carl Icahn deliver Yahoo to Microsoft?

Can Carl Icahn deliver Yahoo to Microsoft? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I do not own shares in the stocks mentioned in this story.

Yahoo board is feeling the Icahn heat originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO)'s CEO, and the company's chairman Roy Bostock sent a letter to shareholders defending the company's actions following the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) bid. There was nothing to defend. Those owning the web portal company's stock got slaughtered.

"Our board of directors and management made a great effort -- and conducted in-depth negotiations -- to elicit a feasible proposal from Microsoft that made strategic and financial sense for Yahoo, but without success," the executives wrote, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The comments are bogus on the face of it. Microsoft's offer got as high as $33 toward the end of negotiations. Yahoo! now trades at $22. That number almost certainly factors in two things that the market already knows. One is that Yahoo! plans to reorganize management to make the company more efficient. The other is that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will sell some of Yahoo!'s search ads, which should make the process more profitable.

Looking back on the entire Yahoo! and Microsoft mess, there is only one thing to remember. Yahoo! traded at $21.94 a week before the offer. It trades near the same price now. The only reason the company was ever worth more is because Microsoft needed it.

And, now that is over.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Yahoo! (YHOO) -- an apology from apologists originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I'm not a shareholder of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) but I know many people who are. And, for the most part, they don't like the company's CEO and co-founder, Jerry Yang.

Isn't the CEO supposed to look out for shareholders? Yes, I'm pretty sure this is the goal of the public markets. Then again, when a visionary founder must ultimately manage a global operation, things can get messy.

Well, there's an excellent piece in the NY Times on the topic by Joe Nocera.

Yang had many chances to do a deal with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), yet, Yahoo is now left with a quirky marketing arrangement with rival Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Ironically, such a deal is further evidence that Yahoo! is languishing in the marketplace. Although the deal may not even last long, especially in light of the antitrust implications.

No doubt, I can understand that Yang has an emotional pull with his company and its employees, but unfortunately, this can actually cloud judgment. Too often founders hire friends and keep them on board too long. Yahoo! has become a bloated organization (even though Yang said he doesn't want to become a part of Microsoft because he thinks it will lead to bureaucracy).

Something else to consider: Look at Yang's severance plan, which offers substantial benefits for departing Yahoo! employees (in the event of a change-of-control). It's a ticking time bomb, which goes beyond a typical "poison pill."

Simply put, Yang has failed his most important constituency: the shareholders. As a result, he doesn't have much credibility on a go-forward basis. When this happens, the typical outcome is that the CEO must leave.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Investors want Jerry Yang's head on a stick originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Microsoft, Yahoo and Icahn oh so silly

Microsoft, Yahoo and Icahn oh so silly originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• DJIA 12141.58 (+57.81)
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Continue reading Closing Bell: Despite positive close, oil, fed, mergers disappoint

Closing Bell: Despite positive close, oil, fed, mergers disappoint originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As Paul Foster wrote yesterday, The Wall Street Journal [subscription] is reporting that corporate raider Carl Icahn will seek to replace Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang at the company's next shareholders meeting in early August. Although Icahn is generally outspoken and sometimes makes brash statements, he's right on this one. Here's why.

Yang created a 100-day plan in 2007 when he replaced outgoing CEO Terry Semel. It involved finding out why Yahoo! was not as successful as it should be, re-aligning priorities for profit goals and heralding that there were no "sacred cows" when it comes to Yahoo! finding its mojo again. The company -- a year later -- is floundering and has not made any progress in finding profitability growth in the face of Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). It's unfortunate that Yahoo! is constantly compared to Google, which reigns supreme in internet search, but that is the sandbox Yahoo! is playing in.

So, if Icahn's bid to control Yahoo!'s board is successful, his first order of business would be to oust Yang, the person responsible for Yahoo!'s unsuccess in the last year and the person who torpedoed Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) bid take over the company earlier this year. Microsoft gave up in May as Yahoo! wanted a $37 per share buyout, which would have valued Yahoo! at over $47 billion.

Continue reading Icahn is right this time: Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang must go

Icahn is right this time: Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang must go originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Icahn to Yahoo: CEO must go! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.