Sold YHOO Today
Bought YHOO in mid july at $25 & change. Blogged about it here.
The trade was working well for me until Sept 20th when I posted the YHOOuch thing.
Since then I've been on the fence, but when I heard from a friend over the weekend that Yahoo! had the YouTube deal for $1.3bn and couldn't get it done and then saw it trade to Google for $1.65bn, I decided that it's time to sit on the sidelines for a bit.
So I've sold my position and taken $1/share loss. It hurts but doesn't kill.
I'd like to buy Yahoo! back because I am a fan of the company and I think its undervalued but I need to see some catalyst and I just don't see it right now.
If Yahoo are to practice what they preach they should buy Feedburner - its the ultimate web2.0 content network - creators, taggers and subscribers in one.
Feeburner has 23m subs [dont know what pageviews are], 250k+ publishers and a growing number of advertisers,
If YouTube is 1.65bn, then Feedburner would be a cheaper take out target - probably around the $500m mark [if you discount on a subscriber/audience basis]
Posted by: Bill Smith | October 11, 2006 at 12:06 PM
I still think YHOO is king of content, GOOG is king of aggregation. My guess is that in the long run, aggregation wins, because high-quality content is starting to come from the masses.
I'd rather own DrudgeReport.com than CNN.com. I'd rather own mytrade.com than CNBC.com. :)
Posted by: Andy | October 11, 2006 at 01:08 PM
Sorry to hear you capitulated. I am still holding on through the agony that has been the last couple months. Great company, just lousy managment right now.
Posted by: Christian Cadeo | October 11, 2006 at 02:15 PM
capitualtion is a long way away - holding on is the wrong thing in my opinion.
No catalyst - no rise. period.
Posted by: howard Lindzon | October 11, 2006 at 02:32 PM
Google overpays for a something that hasn't even turned a profit yet.
3 cheers for Yahoo if you ask me. Buy low, sell high. I think Yahoo was smart to pass up on the deal.
This deal reminds me of Snapple being bought for over $1 billion, and Time Warner overpaying for AOL.
Posted by: Jim Eiden | October 11, 2006 at 04:20 PM
Two corrections: FeedBurner is spelled with a capital B and AOL bought Time Warner. Both equally important distinctions! ;)
Posted by: Dick Costolo | October 11, 2006 at 04:32 PM
Yahoo needs to hire whoever is running Google Adwords. I use both Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture). Adwords is an Aston Martin and Overture is a Lada.
When you think of the billions of dollars involved in these little text ads, seems to me the Yahoo leadership is asleep at the switch.
Posted by: Jeff | October 11, 2006 at 05:05 PM
yhoo passed a chance to buy youtube for 1.3B and goog bought it for 1.65B
And that makes goog great and yhoo suckie !!!
Posted by: some1 | October 11, 2006 at 10:18 PM
When Panama ACTUALLY releases, buy the stock. Make sure that people can actually use it (meaning it is not just announced vaporwear but has actually been released).
The ability to run multiple ads, along with Y! copying the G adwords practice of promoting ads with high CTR means that Yahoo's monetization (rev per page view) will jump dramatically.
Yahoo still has a lot of traffic, may search advertisers want to be there, and would love to spend more money there when Y! enables that .. so there's your catalyst, IMO. Incidentally, you should still have plenty of time to ride the stock up, because favorable rev announcements will take a while after the new platform is released..
Posted by: Joe Agliozzo | October 12, 2006 at 07:52 PM
I've had milk in my fridge longer than you held YHOO.
Posted by: Rick | October 13, 2006 at 07:47 PM
Yahoo has gotten derailed with
the mantra of using user generated
content in addition to algorithms.
User generated content is a load of bull
in the context of a search engine.
Heres a simple test of search engine
intelligence:
Search for "Pete Marko". Google knows
that Pete is sometimes an abbreviation for
Peter. Yahoo doesnt.
Heres another intelligence test:
Search for "sentence boundary" and google knows that boundaries and boundary are related, Yahoo doesnt.
Yahoo is stupider than goog and
it reflects in the stock price.
Posted by: sr | October 14, 2006 at 12:32 AM
Hey Fred, it's been a few weeks since you sold and YHOO has made a nice move up to 26. Just wondering if you think this is a dead cat bounce or did we see capitulation down at 23. I'm still long YHOO but I have my doubts.
Posted by: Mike | October 30, 2006 at 02:38 PM
In some industries - i.e., oil - there seems to be room for a No. 1, 2, and 3. Good news or market conditions will lift Exxon, BP, and Shell. Same with financial stocks - if Goldman Sachs reports good earnings, Lehman will also advance. However, in big captial tech, I'm wondering if that doesn't hold true. Think Dell vs. Gateway. Nokia vs. Ericson. In other words, the market leaders are number one for a reason and the success of Google won't necessarily lift other boats. AdSense success doesn't mean Panama will enjoy the same.
Posted by: Gabe | October 30, 2006 at 04:35 PM
I believe in YHOO, I there's no doubt on my mind. Yahoo stocks have potential of growing 60 to 80 percent in the next 12 to 14 months.
Posted by: KB | July 31, 2007 at 11:48 AM
What you did man..!! It's looking as you are facing dark days of your life.. I believe YHOO will flourish more than what people expect..
Posted by: Web Design | February 26, 2009 at 06:31 AM