No Yahoo today

fickle fickle fickle wall street...

Not to mention what's going on on the Nikkei. Tomorrow should be telling.

It's actually looking pretty healthly (thus far), just the price was out of whack. It missed analyst expectations, but it's 4Q profit nearly doubled and revenue is UP 39 percent from last year, with traffic up 9% (supposedly).

But 'stock price' has to reflect real numbers, not overall health. Which is why a great quarter, can send things down, if expectations are too high or not met.

In the bid up, it fell short, and down to reality, reflecting real profit and sales. Serious adjustment and plus the Alibaba take, but not a "crash". Fail to meet expectations, based on a indicatorish determined value, even with good news, things happen. Investing 101, this happens all the time -- stock market expectations meet cold hard reality in quarterly reports, adjustments are made. Which is why it pays to be realistic and conservative, as too much hype gets things grossly overvalued and brings out the shorts and leads to bubbles.

Thus it is not really a trend indicator of the overall advertising sector, not this time. Though that's a train on the tracks bearing down, long-term. But the MSN pullout is more immediate.

But boy, Steve Rubel now going Web 2.0 crashola? Heh. I'd normally agree. One problem, there isn't really any substance or value itself to "Web 2.0", hard to crash what is already worthless, well maybe some duped VCs pulling money into goofy rot like Riya, but that's not public market stuff. Calling Yahoo "Web 2.0" is a big leap. There are no "Web 2.0" stocks, as "Web 2.0" means nothing.

If you want a possible comparison, look at Apple after reporting fiscal Q2 '05 last April.

They reported earnings that _exceeded_ expectations. They reported increased sales compared to the year before.

But, they gave forward guidance that suggested a flatter quarter than the analysts were anticipating.

The result? A drop from 41.04 to 37.26, nearly 10%). They then floundered the entire quarter, with a low of 34.13 and a high of 40.13.

Where are they now? Double where they were 2 quarters ago. Exceeding expectations of earnings and sales. And if you go back through the last 9 quarters - a time where Apple has seen nearly an 850% increase in their stock price - you'll also find a very steady increase in sales across their product line.

Simply talking stock price as the only indicator of ANYTHING except investor demand is one of the most foolish things a person could do.

Simply talking stock price as the only indicator of ANYTHING except investor demand is one of the most foolish things a person could do.

Yeah, hear ye, hear ye. But methinks Robert and (particulary) Steve are not investor types or if they are, be in need of some basic boot-camp training. If anything it looks future blue skies for Yahoo, my wager at least. Not the advertising sector doom and gloom. Now, granted, I think a fallout will happen, nothing goes up forever and GOOG is grossly overvalued, but you can't justify that trend with this Yahoo dip.

But I would add a disclaimer, if said company has created a ponzi-scheme in which a high price is always needed, then a price adjustment could reflect future doom, but with SOX hopefully those days are but gone (wishful thinking that). And sometimes said "forward guidance" is not the fault of said company, rather irrational speculations and other factors, but generally think like an longish MBA yet with a trigger-happy pessimistic short finger, and all will be fine. Sounds contradictory, but nothing here is rational, emotions are not sciences. :)

cool, this comment is awesome