Yahoo is still trying to play catch up. Helped by cost cuts, Yahoo! (YHOO) posted late Tuesday fourth quarter income of $312 million, or 24 cents a share, more than double last year's income of $153 million, or 11 cents a share, according to the Wall Street Journal. Revenue fell 12% to $1.53 billion from $1.73 billion.

Net revenue, which excludes commissions paid to partners, fell 4% in the quarter to $1.22 billion from $1.26 billion in the year ago period. Excluding the Microsoft (MSFT) impact and certain divestitures, revenue grew by 2% in the quarter.

U.S. stock futures are higher this morning, following President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech. Investors are awaiting earnings reports and a monetary policy announcement by the Federal Reserve. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 35 points to 11,957.00 and S&P 500 futures rose 5.60 points to 1,293.30. Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 9 points at 2,310.25.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.33 points or less than 0.1% yesterday.

Data on December new-home sales will be released at 10 a.m. ET. The latest statement from the Fed is due at 2:15 p.m. ET.

After covering Yahoo!'s Q2 results yesterday, I was left a little disappointed. True, current CEO and company co-founder Jerry Yang has only been in the top spot for a month or so and the April-June quarter results obviously did not reflect any of Yang's direct effort to turn the company around. Yang still aims to monetize more of the traffic Yahoo! receives as well as find new ways to break into non-traditional advertising areas to increase growth, much like competitor Google has done. Listening to Yahoo! President Sue Decker, I believe she has a firmer grip on the operational logistics than Yang, although Yang seems to be more of a spiritual leader for the company. I was left wondering if this new management combination will work.

Were Yahoo!'s (NASDAQ: YHOO) Q2 results a problem? Not necessarily, although that is the sentiment right now with the stock being hammered about 5% in premarket trading right now. The company matched analyst expectations of $0.11 EPS, but offered very little in guidance for future quarters and said that some of the revenue shift that was expected for the Q3 and Q4 period actually occurred in Q2. In other words, don't expect any stellar quarters this year at all from Yahoo!, even with its Project Panama "making great progress." Hmm.

When Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) releases its quarterly numbers tomorrow, it will blow past analyst expectations if recent history is any sign. This will, again, pressure Yahoo! management team to show that it can be as innovative and make as much cash (from any combination of areas) as its larger competitor, using internet search or anything else. In fact, Yahoo!'s position to see revenues from just as many areas as it can is increasingly important as it won't be taking search market share away from Google any time soon. The question is, can it do it?

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares are down 8%, or $2.59, to $29.50 tonight after the internet company reported lower-than-expected profit of 10 cents a share (versus analysts' expectations of 11 cents). Investors were evidently expecting right along with analysts, as the stock had been up 1.52% as the market waited for Yahoo! to report its first quarter earnings. When they came in, the results of Project Panama weren't having the company-wide impact so many Yahoo! watchers had clearly hoped.

Says Jordan Rohan of RBC Capital Markets, "the company is clearly still in transition." From all I've heard, Yahoo! has been in transition (I like to call it "limbo" or maybe even mild "chaos") for the past few years. When will the transition end? As Jonathan Berr suggests, maybe it won't end until Terry Semel is out -- and, I'd argue, the transition will have another year to go from there.

Or even more. Yahoo! will soon be faced with the DoubleClick problem; the internet company has a close partnership with the advertising firm, and that firm has just agreed to be sold to Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). As MarketWatch puts it, this will mean "it'll soon be paying its chief rival for services, and at the same time, giving Google more insight into Yahoo's own business."

I'm not a Yahoo! believer -- I have to wonder if it will ever be done with its "transition."

Yahoo! announced earnings ahead of its investor conference call (that's being liveblogged by Melly and me), at 11 cents per share compared to 13 cents per share last year. The stock was down $2.44 to $29.40 in after-hours trading, a drop of nearly 8% and a nearly two-year low.

Investors are a hopeful kind of bird. Yahoo! stock, along with many in the tech sector, has been in the doldrums as of late. Earnings are coming out in about an hour, though, and this makes the investor bird preen its feathers and buy in advance of the announcement. Despite intraday lows that were down signficantly from yesterday's close, Yahoo! ended the day at $32.17, up 33 cents or 1.04%.

But Piper Jaffray, among other analysts, are predicting good things, including the consensus 11 cents per share profit (down from 13 cents in the year-ago quarter) and positive news in the search ad revenue department. Check back at 5 p.m. Eastern, when we'll be liveblogging the earnings report.