Yahoo shares are relatively flat, down just 1 percent today, after the Sunnyvale company yesterday reported first-quarter sales and profit that missed (already low) expectations.
Some analysts are finding hope in the company s report, and its name is Yahoo Japan. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said the company has hired advisers as it looks to maximize value of its Asian asset. This may sound familiar — Yahoo s valuable stake in Alibaba, which it has since spun off, helped the company for a long time even as its core business struggled.
Once again the most critical considerations to come out of the call for the stock were unrelated to operating results, as Yahoo management indicated it would hire advisers in association with a prospective sale of the company s stake in Yahoo Japan, Brian Wieser, analyst for Pivotal Research Group, wrote.
But Yahoo also confirmed what our Matt O Brien has been writing about recently: It has laid off employees — about 1,100 of them in the first quarter. The workforce reduction cheered analysts who are looking for the company to continue to cut costs.
Other reasons for lukewarm optimism, according to Daniel Salmon of BMO Capital Markets research: Yahoo announced it is planning to enter the daily fantasy sports market. And Salmon is bullish on Tumblr, which Yahoo bought for $1.1 billion a couple of years ago. At 474 [million] monthly visitors, we continue to believe the social network is an under-appreciated opportunity, he wrote.
Yahoo shares are down 55 cents to $43.94, after falling in late trading yesterday.
Photo: Employees walk on the Yahoo campus in Sunnyvale on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)
