June 07, 2008
Jerry Yang You Ingrate
Right now, Jerry Yang should be taking Carl Icahn out to the finest meal The French Laundry can offer. At the very least, Yang should add Icahn to his holiday wishe list as Icahn has done something that Yang hasn't been able to do for the last three years – make Yahoo! relevant in daily conversations. No longer do the Yahoo! beat reporters have to beg the company's under utilized PR people for interesting stories aside from the uninspiring advertising deals they regularly announce.
Icahn has saved Yahoo! from being a 90's trivia question (Who was the king of Internet search before Google?). And while the most practical application to today's users, My Yahoo!, has been replicated and surpassed by Pageflakes and Netvibes, will this new found Interest in the 90's stalwart save the company from an agonizingly slow descent back into obscurity ?
We at Techstocker think Yahoo! will remain a fixture in the headlines of business pages across the country and is a good short term investment for two simple reasons:
1. Carl Icahn didn't invest approximately $1.5b in Yahoo! stock on a whim. Icahn saw an opportunity to make a quick return on his cash and he's not about to let that go. The letters going back and forth are just the opening volley in a war that Yahoo! does not have the ammunition to fight.
2. Yahoo! desperately needs this deal. While Yang would like everyone to believe everything is smooth sailing on the S.S. Yahoo!, the reality is the company has been sailing aimlessly for a few years and will probably never return to a profitable port.
Lighten the load on your financial services stocks and place a small wager on Yahoo! It will return to its 52-week high which should net everyone, including Icahn and Yang, a nice little profit in these uncertain times. While it may leave Yang a little embarrassed, at least the improved valuation of his company stock will allow him to do some retail therapy.
Posted by jgb at 11:11 PM | TrackBack
May 11, 2007
With Microsoft Buying Chunk of CareerBuilder, Monster.com Is Single
MSFT this week bought 4% of newspaper owned Careerbuilder. UBS says that this makes Monster.com a strategic buyout interest as one of the few large remaining career sites. Potential suitors are Gannett and eBay.
Posted by Paul at 07:13 PM | TrackBack
May 08, 2007
JP Morgan Says Google Should Buy Yahoo
J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan, needs to cut down on the late night partying with think. He suggests today that “it would now make sense” for Google to buy Yahoo and thinks there would not be regulatory issues. We won't argue with his financial analysis that if Yahoo would use Google's ad server instead of Panama it would make a lot more.
Posted by Paul at 06:35 AM | TrackBack
April 27, 2007
Baidu Kicks It Into High Gear
We have not liked Baidu as we know that advertisers will not pay much per click for Chinese traffic. However, it seems that for Baidu its traffic is so strong CPC rates don't matter. Shares surged 23% after the Chinese-language Internet search giant said first-quarter earnings and revenue more than doubled from a year ago. The Beijing-based company said earnings rose 143% from a year ago to $11 million, or 32 cents a share.
Posted by Paul at 08:30 PM | TrackBack
April 18, 2007
The Mantra: Never Invest In Yahoo Again
After weeks of speculation that Yahoo's new ad serving system Panama would return Yahoo to a growth stock that at least ride Google's coat-tails, Yahoo blew it again. It reported an 11% drop in first quarter profits as its revenue rate continued its steady decline. The stock fell 8% in after hours trading.
"People were expecting a possibility of upward guidance and we didn't get that so the stock is giving back," American Technology Research
An analyst at Cowen contentds that advertisers are spending more on niche content sites, such as MySpace, Friendster and YouTube at the expense of Yahoo.
Posted by Paul at 06:21 PM | TrackBack
April 04, 2007
6 Reasons To Sell Your GOOG Shares
Analyst Trip Chowdry of Global Equities Research must have chugged several cups of high octane coffee when he penned his downgrade of Google (GOOG) to Neutral from Buy, and set a price target of $425. He writes like an analyst who is made as hell and can't take Google any more.
1) YouTube users numbers are hyper-inflated. "Google will need to come clean on the exact number of unique individuals on YouTube.”
2) Pre-roll ads on YouTube are not working. Neither are sponsorships and banner ads.
3) Former Google board member, YouTube investor, and Sequoia Capital leading man Michael Moritz may be asked to return $1.6B to Google. Chowdry piles on saying that copyright litigation with YouTube is expected to exceed $1.6B. “We think Mike Moritz…probably had a conflict of interest and may have suckered Google into believing hype regarding the acquisition of YouTube.
tech:stocker's take on YouTube concerns: who cares? YouTube revenues are not material to Google's financial performance and share price. Its an interesting conspiracy theory that Moritz was forced from the Google board because he over-played his hand with the YouTube acquisition, but Google Video, its home-grown product, has the same issues so it can be hard to justify assigning blame for Google's legal issues on Moritz.
Reading Chowdry between the lines, we think he would counter that YouTube numbers might not be material, but the drama of YouTube is a distraction for top management and is spoiling relationships with potential partners. Fair enough.
4) 75% of Microsoft Vista users are using Vista desktop search, and 20% are using Vista Web Search.
tech:stocker's take: Every month Comscore reports that Google continues to take market share from competitors.
5) Both Microsoft and Yahoo ad networks offer lower CPC and better conversion rates than Google.
The a:c's take: We take this argument more seriously than any other on this list. A lot of dumb money goes to Adsense just because its Google and that is bound to be corrected.
6) Google is losing the technology lead in search to pre-launch start-up PowerSet and Google could lose talent to Powerset.
tech:stocker's take: Hmm...pre-launch Powerset over-powering Google? Until we can demo Powerset we'll reserve judgement. Powerset does have about 30 job openings on its site but shouldn't scare Google's HR department.
Posted by Paul at 07:03 AM | TrackBack
March 23, 2007
Why GOOG 1/4 May Be Better Than Expected
Google’s (GOOG) first quarter is tracking ahead of estimates, says JP Morgan, which now says that Google is on track to grow global query volume 15% sequentially in the quarter, rather than the 13% street consensus. JP Morgan disputes claims that Google's market share has not been hurt by Yahoo’s new Panama search platform.
Posted by Paul at 10:13 PM | TrackBack
January 31, 2007
GOOG Report In With Little Upside
Google reported revenue was in line and profits were a bit better than expectations. Quarterly revenue was $3.21B, or $2.234B after traffic acquisition costs. EPS was $3.29. The Street has been looking for revenues of $2.2B.
The earlier reaction: the stock is gyrating but below the regular session closing price; that could change once the company conference call starts in about 10 minutes. As I write this, the stock is down $13.25 after hours at $488.25. In the regular session, the stock rose $7.18 but then fell after the report.
Posted by Paul at 09:44 PM | TrackBack
January 11, 2007
Goldman Sees GOOG To 52 Week High And Then Some
Goldman's GOOG guys Antthony Noto raised estimates to $2.90 for the quarter. Noto credits Google revenue growth from monetization of MySpace and eBay.
GOOG is at $499.86 +10.40 today or +2.12%.
Posted by Paul at 05:09 PM | TrackBack
Yahoo Shakes Hands With Akimbo And Bam It's Up 4.1% Today
YHOO is trading at $28.70 up +4.1% . Either investors are over the moon that Yahoo signed a deal with Akimbo Systems to run video programming or they are just realizing that Yahoo has hit bottom and can't suck and worse than it has.
Elsewhere on the Internet, InterActiveCorp. (IACI) closed at $38.32, up 2.2% ). Its strong man Barry Diller, said portfolio company Ask.com will introduce two new content features in the next 60 to 90 days (big whoop). He also said IAC intends to renegotiate an advertising deal it has with Google soon, and that three other Internet advertising providers could also be interested in swooping in.
Big suprise : EBAY was down again, to $29.30 or -1.5% ). Good news to consumers, eBay increased to $2K from $1K its refund for fraudulent purchases, but The Street didn't like it.