Yahoo Shares Land With A Thud. Yahoo heard it from investors on Wednesday following CEO Marissa Mayer s latest effort to turn the troubled Internet company around and keep herself out of the unemployment line.
By the time the stock market closed, Yahoo shares had fallen by 4.7 percent to close at $27.69. Mayer s plans to cut 15 percent of Yahoo s workforce, which will leave it with about 9,000 employees, and all her talk about streamlining operations to focus on growth areas such as mobile, weren t enough to appease Wall Street. Yahoo s stock price is now down by 38 percent over the past year.
It probably didn t help that Yahoo s ongoing issue of what to do with its stake in Chinese Internet leader Alibaba remains unresolved, although Yahoo said spinning off Alibaba remains a priority.
And then there s the matter of Yahoo looking at a reverse spin, or selling off its core Internet business. There are so many possible routes that Yahoo could take that its direction remained as murky as it was before Mayer delivered the plan, and Yahoo s fourth-quarter results.
How will the board decide what value is fair, given 2016 is still a transition year ? asked Suntrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck, in a research note. Clarification on these questions are critical for shareholders. We emphasize that timeliness is instrumental, as the new focused growth strategy is not certain to work, given past turnaround failures.
Mayer s cause also wasn t aided by investors who continue to be upset by what they see as profligate spending by Yahoo on things like its recent Roaring 20s-themed holiday party. Mayer repudiated claims that Yahoo spent $7 million on the gig, saying that it really cost around $2 million.
Is That Uber, Or What? First, Uber upended the taxi industry with its app-based ride-sharing service. Now, it s upended its own logo.
Uber revealed a new logo that looks nothing like the well-known U that has so far adorned the cars that drive under the Uber name. The new logo is meant to symbolize the merging of a bit with an atom, or as Uber explains it in video on its website:
The bit represents our technology. It s complex, precise and advanced, but when it is express, it is effortless and refined, a soothing female voice says while music plays in the background. The atom signifies our rapidly expanding cities, the goods we move from place to place, and, most importantly, the people we serve.
Okay…
Move Over, Jeff. Facebook s Menlo Park headquarters is about 800 miles south of Amazon s Seattle head offices. But on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped all the way up Interstate 5 to leap past Amazon chief Jeff Bezos to become the fourth-wealthiest person on Earth. According to Bloomberg s Billionaires Index, Zuckerberg s net worth now stands at $50 billion. However, don t bet on finding Bezos having to dig through his sofa cushions to look for spare change. He is still worth $49.1 billion.
Inside Intel. The world s leading semiconductor company has made it a priority to hire more under-represented minorities. In fact, in 2015, Intel was able to claim that 12 percent of its new hires were minorities, up from 9 percent in 2014.
But are they staying? While new hires are up, the percentage of black employees leaving Intel early in their careers has edged upward. And Intel is working on ways to stop that downward trend.
Hello, Joe, Whaddaya Know? The Super Bowl is just days away, and one of the most-prominent players in the history of the big game, Joe Montana, has become as ubiquitous as the read-option offense. After years avoiding much of the public eye, the former 49ers great is emerging as a big-name corporate pitchman.
Here s a look at how some leading Silicon Valley tech stocks did Wednesday.
Movin On Up: Respectable gains came from Apple, Twitter, ServiceNow, Brocade Communications and…GoPro, which rose by 4.6 percent ahead of the release of its fourth-quarter results.
In The Red: Well, in addition to Yahoo and its 4.7 percent decline, Netflix, PaloAlto Networks, Imperva and Linear Technology all retreated.
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley s biggest companies: Down 9.9, or 0.7 percent, to close at 1,505.
The tech-focused Nasdaq composite index: Down 12.7 points, or 0.3 percent, to close at 4,504.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 183.12 points, or 1.1 percent, to close at 16,336.
And the broad-based Standard & Poor s 500 index: Up 9.5 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 1,912.
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Photo Credit: LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group
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