Reuters: Technology News: Alibaba stake and Mayer's focus offer hope for Yahoo: analysts

Reuters: Technology News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Alibaba stake and Mayer's focus offer hope for Yahoo: analysts Jul 17th 2013, 12:19 The Yahoo logo is shown at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, California April 16, 2013. The company will release its quarterly results on Tuesday. Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:19am EDT (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc's lackluster results failed to put off Wall Street analysts, who focused on the growth prospects of its investment in Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba and Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's focus on product development. Yahoo's shares were set to open about 1.7 percent higher at around $27.35 after at least six brokerages raised their price targets on the stock even after the company trimmed its revenue forecast on Tuesday. Barclays Equity Research, Stifel Nicolaus, JPMorgan Equity Research, Evercore Partners, RBC Capital Markets and Topeka Capital raised their price targets on Yahoo's stock by as much as $8, with a top price of $34. Several analysts noted that while Yahoo's core business grew only moderately in the first quarter, revenue at 24-percent-owned Alibaba increased by 71 percent to $1.4 billion. Several brokerages raised their valuation on Alibaba, which is widely expected to go public later this year, to as much as $120 billion, higher than the $100 billion valuation put on Facebook Inc before its IPO. Evercore, which raised its valuation to $120 billion Alibaba, previously valued the company at $90 billion. Yahoo has a market capitalization of about $29 billion. Yahoo trimmed its full-year revenue forecast to $4.45-$4.55 billion from $4.5-$4.6 billion. Revenue fell slightly to $1.07 billion in the second quarter. "We think investors should give the management team the benefit of the doubt as it is unrealistic to expect a turnaround of such a challenged business in 12 months," Bernstein Research analyst Carlos Kirjner said in a note, referring to Mayer's appointment last July. Yahoo, in a live stream event akin to a TV newscast with Mayer and CFO Ken Goldman playing news anchors, acknowledged that there was pressure on prices but said Yahoo was developing new ad formats and technology that would reverse the trend. Mayer highlighted four business areas -- search, mobile, display and video -- that she said would drive revenue growth. "With a new management team and a renewed focus on products, we think YHOO! has the potential to become a classic 'Net turnaround story," RBC analyst Mark Mahaney said in a note. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Ted Kerr) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions