Talk is Cheap

A CEO Who Subtracted Value

It is easy to blame Gates and Ballmer for missing the internet boat but they started a company 30 years back that had revenues of $30 BILLION in 2008. Yahoo had revenues of around $6 billion and Carol worked for a company that had revenues of $1.5 billion.

May be Carol should focus on her current job at Yahoo instead of finding faults with the legends of the software industry.

Cramer's Stop Trading - Dark Days for Coal (11/14/08)

I think Cramer's advice can be used very effectively to make money. Just do the opposite of what he says :-)

Decker's Position on Berkshire's Board Is Reason Enough to Make Her Yahoo's New CEO

Decker is on Berkshire board so she knows Buffett, Buffett knows Gates, Gates can twist Ballmer's arm, and Ballmer will bend over and buy Yahoo!.

This is amazing logic. God help corporate america if this kind of logic is used in mergers and aquisitions.

Isn't there something called boards and shareholders. Maybe we can fire Bostock too since he doesn't seem to have any say in this deal.

A New Numbers Problem at Yahoo

Achates,
Why is it not a huge swing? Jerry going from 14% withheld to 33%, Bostock from 20% to 39%, Burkle from 18% to 37% is indeed a huge swing. The number of people who cast the votes do not matter. What matters is the number of votes. When people put their money in Mutual Fund, they transfer their right to vote to the fund manager and fund manager basically represents many people who have invested money in their fund.
The funds normally have huge stakes in companies and are in it for a long haul. They cannot offload 15% Yahoo shares in a few seconds like retail investers can.

A New Numbers Problem at Yahoo

...continuing from above
Looks like Icahn had a better than expected chance of getting more seats on the board if he had stayed the course.

A New Numbers Problem at Yahoo

Looks like the joy of winning just lasted for the weekend.

The new results are out
biz.yahoo.com/bw/08080...

It is very surprising that the voting and tabulation of the most awaited shareholder meeting was screwed up. I am aware that a third party did this job. How can a truncation error occur just at 8 digits? Shouldn't they have known that there are more than a billion shares outstanding and so the width should have been at least 10 digits.

Maybe now, the board will wake up.

Looks like Icahn had a better than expected chance of getting more seats on the board if he had

5 Key Quotes from Yahoo! on the Internet Industry

And the point is....

Yahoo's YMail - Don't Really Get It

People come up with something just for the heck of it so that they don't look like they have run out of ideas. I think Yahoo! is in that situation now.

Microsoft, in Spin Mode

Google and Microsoft hate each other so much that they would do anything to hurt each other. MSFT tried to buy Yahoo to beat Google and Google is helping Yahoo to hurt MSFT.
I don't think GOOG will get any immediate monetary benefit from this but this is a good strategic move from Google. Yahoo can remain independent. Can't say how long though.

Icahn: Smart, Dumb, or Just Plain Screwed?

How much does Mr. Icahn stand to lose from this mess? As I understand it, he bought 10 million shares at around $25 and bought 49 million options (strike price $19.50, option premium around $5) that expire in 10 years. So even if the stock price falls to $20, he decides to get out, he loses about $300 million.
Going by his record, I do not think he will be willing to lose that kind of money. He will do whatever he can to get control of the company and then even if he sells the company for $27/share he would make about $200 million and MSFT would be happy to get the deal done at $27. Shareholders would not want to miss the boat again so they would support him.
The guy made billions by doing this kind of stuff. He cannot be lucky so many times to make billions nor can he be stupid to flush $300 million down the toilet.
It would be interesting to see what happens in coming weeks.

Disclosure: Long MSFT, No position in YHOO

Analyzing Yahoo's First Quarter Results - Conference Call 101

This is very interesting analysis. I am in an MBA program and am learning Earnings Management in my Financial Statement Analysis class but this is Earnings Call Management.
Looks like the stock is holding up merely on speculation.