Yahoo! Inc

Verizon (VZ) announced on Tuesday, June 13, that it had completed its $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo’s (YHOO) core Internet assets.

If Verizon shaves $1 billion from the price it was to originally pay for the Yahoo! acquisition, the deal would be worth less than the $4.4 billion that Verizon paid for AOL in 2015.

On January 26, financial adviser Andy Chase told CNBC’s Mike Santoli that equity valuations are at an all-time low. Chase believes that stocks provide the strongest investment opportunity in 2017.

Yahoo! remains hopeful that Verizon (VZ) will acquire its operating assets despite its recent disclosure of major breaches in its system.

After pulling back in the last week of 2016 amid the broad market sell-off and thin volumes, the S&P 500 rose on the first trading day of 2017.

Verizon (VZ) is reviewing the impact of a fresh hack on the Yahoo! (YHOO) system that affected more than a billion accounts. Verizon agreed to acquire YHOO’s core assets for ~$4.8 billion, which could be renegotiated downward pending the outcome of the assessment of the hacking events.

As of June 30, 2016, Janus Capital had removed Yahoo! (YHOO) completely from its holdings.

David Einhorn has included Yahoo in his top stock picks for 2016. He increased his position in Yahoo in 1Q16 and bought 4.4 million shares of the stock.

On Monday, July 25, 2016, Verizon Communications (VZ) announced that it will acquire Yahoo’s operating business for $4.8 billion in cash. Many analysts believe the Verizon-Yahoo deal could lead to the end of Yahoo as an operating company.

Event-driven strategy is designed to make an investment in special situations, including mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, split-offs, bankruptcy, and other major events.

Instagram is still growing its user base and engagement at a rapid pace and is immensely popular among teenagers.

Facebook acquired Instagram, a photo-sharing app, in 2012 for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock.

Snapchat has been recognized for building innovative and enticing features.

According to 451 Research, ~42% of mobile apps projects are controlled by business managers or marketing teams, rather than by corporate IT departments.

Pinterest is expanding its self-serve advertising feature to allow advertisers to place ads without any help from advertising sales representatives.

The increasing popularity of Instagram among US teens resulted in the declining attractiveness of Facebook for this demographic.

The advantage of Facebook over other social media platforms is its 1.6 billion monthly active users.

Google’s programmatic ads business includes DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Amazon’s 4Q15 results drove a hostile market reaction and dragged shares down by 14%, despite the fact that it achieved its highest quarterly growth ever.

Facebook beat analyst estimates for both revenues and EPS. The company reported revenues of $5.8 billion, compared to estimates of nearly $5.4 billion.

In June 2015, Pinterest launched buyable pins, helping pinners—people sharing images and links—to buy products within Pinterest itself.

Out of 43 analysts covering Yahoo, 26 have “buy” recommendations, none have “sell” recommendations, and 17 have “hold” recommendations on the stock.

Yahoo Screen’s unique visitors showed a fall of 28% between October 2013 and October 2015, coming in at 15 million unique visitors in November 2015.

Of the 13 analysts covering Alphabet (GOOG), 12 have given it a “buy” recommendation, none has given it a “sell” recommendation, and one has a given it a “hold” recommendation.

Out of 52 analysts covering Facebook, 47 have “buy” recommendations, one has a “sell” recommendation, and four have “hold” recommendations on the stock.

Facebook showed a rise of 15% in its number of monthly active users, which stood at 1.6 billion in 3Q15 compared to 1.4 billion in 3Q14.

Despite its high number of online users, Facebook keeps an eye on Tencent’s WeChat features to improve its messaging app.

Facebook has made rapid strides in the video ad market. More than 8 billion video views occur on its platform from more than 500 million people daily.

On December 21, 2015, the last trading price of Alphabet (GOOG) was $760.8.

Yahoo (YHOO) has come up with a new mobile app that helps users find their favorite TV shows or movies available on various streaming service providers.

Yahoo still attracted 210 million users in the United States as of October 2015. So, Yahoo comes only after Google and Facebook according to Comcast.

On December 04, 2015, the last trading price of Yahoo (YHOO) was $34.9. The company was trading 4.2% above its 20-day moving average of $33.5.

If Verizon buys Yahoo, then that would strengthen Verizon’s position in the advertising technology business. In June 2015, Verizon Acquired AOL for $4.4 billion.

If Alibaba buys Yahoo, then Alibaba could break cultural and linguistic barriers by customizing its shopping platform with local language translations.

Investors are assigning a value of less than zero to Yahoo, since the company’s market cap includes two large assets, namely Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.

Yahoo’s core business is losing ground, but it still is in a position to attract users with a portfolio of web services, including Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News.

On Wednesday, December 2, 2015, the stocks at the top of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) were Avon Products (AVP), Yahoo! (YHOO), and Qualcomm (QCOM).

In this series, we’ll analyze the YTD performance of firms in the Technology, Hardware, and Storage subsector and that are a part of the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK).

Snapchat will now charge users to replay their favorite messages. The company will allow users to replay three messages for $0.99.

The healthcare sector rebounded on Tuesday, September 29, after being rattled the week prior.

Earlier this year, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications (VZ) for $4.4 billion in an all-cash transaction. AOL’s ad technology will make it possible for Verizon to monetize its video content through advertising.

As evidence of increased web application vulnerability, Trustwave App Scanner has found 17,748 flaws and discovered that 98% of applications have an exposure through at least one or more flaws, which could give easy access to cybercrime.

eBay (EBAY) generated investor returns of 20.06% in the trailing 12-month period and -8.88% in the trailing one-month period.

Advertisement technology In 2Q15, Yahoo! (YHOO) announced availability of independent viewability and fraud management for display as well as video advertising across the company’s programmatic buying platform, including Yahoo! properties. The company’s earnings release stated, “Advertisers can now choose from leading accredited, third-party measurement solutions to independently validate for viewability and fraud across display and […]

In 2Q15, Yahoo! (YHOO) reported revenues of $1.243 billion compared to $1.084 billion in 2Q14 and $1.226 billion in 1Q15. Gross profit increased marginally in 2Q15.

Shareholder returns and stock trends VeriSign (VRSN) generated investor returns of 24.54% in the trailing 12-month period and -2.63% in the trailing one-month period. In comparison, it generated -4.65% in 2014 and 21.44% YTD (year-to-date). The comopany’s share price increased 3.11% in the trailing five-day period. In comparison, Facebook (FB) and Yahoo! (YHOO), peer companies in the […]

The US stock market witnessed the stocks rally on September 8. However, it saw all of its sectors go red on September 9, 2015. SPY’s component sectors fell.

Instagram reported its click-through rate of 1.50% for the month of August to date. This is almost double Facebook’s rate. Instagram clearly has the potential to churn out big money for Facebook.

Facebook has been hiring new talent and investing heavily in improving user experience on Instagram, WhatsApp Messenger, and Messenger. Instagram is expected to churn big money for Facebook.

Facebook (FB) announced its 2Q15 earnings on July 29, 2015. The company reported adjusted EPS of $0.50 and revenue of $4.04 billion, a 39% increase.

The main objective of Alphabet is to streamline its varied businesses and focus on opportunities for new initiatives under the Google brand.

In the camcorder market, GoPro (GPRO) has the leading market share of 47.50%. It’s followed by ION, Sony (SNE), and Polaroid.

Microsoft’s integration and partnerships with Yahoo! (YHOO), Amazon (AMZN), and Apple (AAPL) enabled Bing to command 20.3% of the US search market in 2Q15.

Google (GOOGL) led stock market gains on Wall Street on July 17. Its stock registered a 16.26% rise at the close of July 17.

Google’s search advertising business has flatlined quarter-over-quarter. In 2Q14, growth for search revenue was 4.5%. It’s expected to grow a meager 1%–2% in 2Q15.

Instagram has reached the 300 million-user mark, and the majority of its users are young and high-income teens. This is exactly the type of audience big brands are after.

Among the suggested videos, Facebook plans to feature video ads, testing the waters in the video ad market. The firm wants to challenge Google.

Ross Levinsohn said that Yahoo! once tried to strike an advertising deal with Microsoft (MSFT) similar to the new deal between AOL (AOL) and Microsoft.

The Internet Software & Services subsector continues to lead large-cap tech stocks. Of the seven stocks in this subsector, one had negative and six had positive weekly returns.

Alibaba should have about a 34% share in China’s mobile Internet ad market by the end of this year, compared to Baidu’s share of 32.4%.

Initially, Facebook had posted restrictions on the content being marketed on Instagram, and this made Instagram unique on social media.

Ad buying on TV Everywhere is more complex than on linear TV and uses a programmatic ad strategy. The programmatic ad market has huge growth potential.

Equinix is trading at a PE ratio more than four times the XLK average and 66% more than its peer sector average. In the last ten years, Equinix stock price has increased by a phenomenal 622%.

In May 2012, Facebook’s stock price was $38, and its PE ratio was 80.0 x. The ratio reached an all-time high of 7,930x, when net income dropped to $53 million that year.

Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) will add a new feature to its mobile search ads called the “buy now” button.

IBM has in fact been decreasing the degree of its share repurchasing activity since 2014, as the number of shares outstanding is now below $1 billion.

Since HP (HPQ) is about to lose $400–$450 million due to the split, its layoffs by the end of 2015 will help counterbalance the separation costs.

The new LinkedIn Lead accelerator suite enables marketers to reach their target audiences more effectively. This addition should allow the company to generate more advertising revenues.

In its first-quarter earnings release, Yahoo! reported EPS of $0.15, missing consensus estimates by $0.03. It missed revenue estimates by $20 million.

JAT Capital Management invests primarily in technology, media and telecom, travel, leisure, and gaming companies. In this series, we’ll take a detailed look at the fund’s top holdings in 1Q15.

Tim Armstrong revived AOL, which is evident from the huge boost in AOL’s stock price that has nearly doubled in the last six years.

Apple and Google have a large number of apps in their respective app stores, which presents a challenge for mobile analytics firms such as App Annie to analyze.

Jobless claims declined in the US for the week ending May 2. There were 265,000 new claims for unemployment insurance.

Facebook’s (FB) family of platforms includes WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram in addition to Facebook’s own platform. Its platforms continue to grow in size.

In 4Q14, OZ Management initiated new positions in Comcast (CMCSA), Yahoo! (YHOO), Endo International plc (ENDP), DIRECTV (DTV), and CDK Global Inc. (CDK).

Microsoft will need to beef up its sales force to sell its search ads. Microsoft’s Bing is ranked third in the global search ad market.

Microsoft will take over the responsibility of selling ads on the Bing platform while Yahoo will continue to sell Gemini ads on its own platform.

An April 16 press release from Yahoo (YHOO) announced that Yahoo and Microsoft (MSFT) have amended their search relationship.

Oracle Learning Cloud promotes social learning and contextual functions. It aims to educate users in real time with customized recommendations based on skills and job types.

Oracle ID Graph claims to analyze channel identifiers and device-centric indicators to establish a single customer identity.

Adam Cahan will now lead Yahoo’s web video group. Cahan successfully changed Yahoo’s mobile business into a major operation.

Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013. David Karp founded Tumblr. He had been leading the business at Yahoo as well. Now, he will report to Simon Khalaf.

On Wednesday, Facebook (FB) launched the web version of its Messenger mobile app. Messenger has more than 500 million monthly active users.

Mozilla’s deal with Yahoo (YHOO) made it the default search engine for Firefox users in the US. The deal impacted Google (GOOG) (GOOGL).

The TrueView ad format is very popular with advertisers. According to Google, the number of TrueView impressions on YouTube grew by 75% on a YoY basis.

According to a recent report from eMarketer, Facebook and Twitter (TWTR) will continue to gain share in the US digital display market in the future.

Google maintained growth rates of 17%–18% over the last couple of years. It should be able to manage a healthy growth rate in 2015 as well.

In 2015, Bing’s share in the search ad market could be similar to 2014. However, its search ad revenue should grow by 18.5%.

Luxor Capital’s investment style is a long-term value-oriented approach and its portfolio has a balanced mix of both equity and fixed income securities.

Yahoo Gemini is a marketplace that combines mobile search and native advertising, helping advertisers manage and optimize their ads.

In addition to its partnership with Paperless Post, Yahoo (YHOO) also launched contact cards in Yahoo Mail to increase user engagement.

In 4Q14, Yahoo partnered with online invitation and stationery giant, Paperless Post.

During the earnings conference call, Yahoo’s management said that in 2014, more than 600,000 applications were integrated with the Flurry software development kit.

Apple’s (AAPL) Safari is the most popular browser on mobile devices, with a 44% market share.

Mobile search monetizes at a lower rate than PC search due to the smaller screen sizes of mobile devices.

Even though Yahoo has added more than 1,000 people from acquisitions, Yahoo’s headcount has been relatively flat throughout the current management’s tenure.

In July 2009, Yahoo (YHOO) signed a ten-year deal with Microsoft (MSFT) with the expectation that the partnership will allow both firms to team up against the dominant player, Google (GOOG).

Yahoo plans to make Tumblr similar to YouTube and is trying to convince some of Google’s top YouTube stars to make Tumblr their exclusive video distributor.

Yahoo’s native ads generated $106 million in 4Q14, up 32% quarter-over-quarter. Revenue for 2014 of $300 million exceeded company estimates of $250 million.

In December, Yahoo acquired BrightRoll for $640 million. The acquisition of BrightRoll put Yahoo in a leadership position in the video advertising industry.