Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) Chief Executive Jerry Yang is going to have to convince investors that the company he helped found in 1995 still matters when it reports fourth quarter results later today. It's not going to be easy.The most visited Web site is expected to report its eighth straight quarter of declining profit. according to Bloomberg News. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are expecting an average profit of 11 cents on revenue of $1.41 billion. Expectations, to put it kindly, are real low.
The view of Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay quoted by Bloomberg that Yahoo ``just isn't generating anything like the resources they need to really stay in the game" is typical. Yahoo shares have plunged more than 27% over the past year.
Unfortunately, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) isn't the only company taking a bite out of Yahoo which trails the search engine giant in every conceivable metric. Social networking sites such as Facebook continue to siphon away young users coveted by advertisers as are smaller niche sites, forcing Yahoo to offer rate discounts to advertisers.
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