A Yahoo ! Surprise?
April 17, 2012 by Douglas A. McIntyre
Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) will release Q1 earnings today. They are expected to be dismal. The firm’s important display ad revenue will probably contract–again. Yahoo! once dominated inventory in this sector. Its piece has been dwarfed by Facebook’s.
New CEO Scott Thompson has barely said what his plans are for the portal company’s future. Like CEOs before him, he has cut jobs–in the most recent case 2,000. That will increase margins, at least temporarily. But, most investors still believe that the key to Yahoo! value is its holding in China e-commerce company Alibaba and its share of Yahoo! Japan. Thompson has said nothing about what he plans to do with these. The media has followed his plans recently, and the foreign properties do not appear to be near-term concerns.
