Investopedia: Yahoo! Reclaims Traffic Leadership, But Can It Turn It Into Cash?

A curious thing happened in internet-land in July. According to comScore, Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) surpassed Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) to take the top spot in web traffic for July 2013, the first time in more than two years. Yahoo! edged out Google with 197 million unique visitors against Google's 192 million. As always, though, the devil is in the details. It remains to be seen whether Yahoo! can leverage its position into revenue and profits.

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Investopedia: BlackBerry Finally Looking For A Bidder, But Will A Real Buyer Bite?

It looks like an outbreak of rationality has hit BlackBerry (Nasdaq:BBRY), as the company announced on Monday that it had formed a special committee to “explore strategic alternatives” for the struggling handset company. While the company's announcement mentioned options like joint ventures, partnerships, and alliances, shareholders, analysts, and investors are are zeroing in almost exclusively on the possibility of a sale.

If BlackBerry is serious about a sale, it'll happen. I have no doubt that, at the right price, the company can find a buyer willing to take on the not-inconsiderable task of turning around this struggling high-end handset company. The trick is going to be that “at the right price” part. BlackBerry's enterprise value (that is, market capitalization net of cash and debt on the balance sheet) isn't very large, but any buyer is looking at a likely multi-year restructuring/turnaround program that will require capital, compress margins, and offer only uncertain payoffs.

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Investopedia: Groupon Takes Another Step Forward

The once beaten-up Internet 2.0 stocks are coming back with a vengeance. Groupon (Nasdaq:GRPN) still has a long way to go to match Facebook (NYSE: FB) and Yelp (Nasdaq:YELP) in terms of reclaiming prior highs, but the stock has quadrupled from its lows and analysts seem considerably more positive about the company's strategy now. With that big recovery in the stock, valuation is getting more demanding but if Groupon can get to double-digit revenue growth, I would expect the stock to remain strong.

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Investopedia: Has Facebook Crossed The Mobile Threshold?

There never seems to be a middle ground on Facebook (NYSE:FB), as opinions run very hot or cold based on the latest data point (real or imagined) concerning the company. There's no question that Facebook surprised the Street with its mobile ad revenue growth this quarter, and user data seems to run counter to the worries that users are disengaging from Facebook. While I remain basically bullish on the company (and the stock), that comes with the warning that sell-side analysts are significantly jacking up their estimates in the wake of this quarter and any shortfall in the third quarter will be swiftly and brutally punished.

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Investopedia: Yahoo! Still Needs To Generate Better Intrinsic Value

A year into her tenure as Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq:YHOO) CEO, Marissa Mayer may have ruffled a few feathers, but Yahoo!'s feathers were badly in need of ruffling as it was well on the AOL (NYSE:AOL)/MySpace path to irrelevance and doom. While there's still quite a lot of work to be done in turning the business around, the better-than-70% rise in the shares over the past year has to be encouraging to shareholders. The biggest question now is whether or not Yahoo! can take the cash coming from the Alibaba IPO and reinvest it into sustainable cash-generating growth opportunities.

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Investopedia: Google Goes A Waze To Stay Strong In Maps

Once a tech company gets to a certain size, the lines between offense and defense begin to blur. Really, though, it doesn't matter if analysts and financial writers categorize Google's (Nasdaq:GOOG) widely-rumored acquisition of Waze as offensive or defensive. The fact is, Waze is a valuable mapping asset and it brings more value (and a deeper moat) to Google's already valuable and important mapping assets.

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Investopedia: Yahoo! Adds Tumblr, But Is This Another Underpants Gnome Deal?

Whether it's because of my Wall Street background or it's just legitimately funny on its own, the Underpants Gnome episode of South Park is one of my all-time favorites. I particularly love the explanation of the business plan – Step One: Collect Underpants, Step Two: ?, Step Three: Profit – as it so well captured the silliness of tech bubbles and pilloried the ridiculousness of the CEOs and corporate boards of the era.

I'm not sure Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) shareholders see quite the same humor in it, though, as the company's past acquisitions of GeoCities, HotJobs, AltaVista fit that model pretty well. Now we have Yahoo! spending over $1 billion of shareholders' money on Tumblr. Management promises that this time will be different, and how this deal goes over the next couple of years will say a lot about whether new management will produce different results for this long-struggling internet company.

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Investopedia: Groupon Shows Some Vigor, But Much Work Waits To Be Done

Everything is relative in the stock market, and it's important to keep Groupon's (Nasdaq:GRPN) performance in context. Yes, Groupon does seem to be doing better, but bears may well argue that means nothing more than Groupon is in a better state of certain death. Although I don't think Groupon is doomed, I do think there's a lot of work left to do, and Groupon still has a lot left to do before it convinces investors that this is a real business with real value for the long-term.

Some Improvements In The First Quarter
Expectations for Groupon have definitely seen downward revisions over the past year, but the company's first quarter results offer some optimism that management, sell-side analysts, and reality are all back on the same page.

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Investopedia: Uncertainty Over Facebook's Emerging Model Will Keep Things Interesting

It wasn't so long ago that Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq:FB) was a Wall Street pinata, but the shares found their footing in November and have risen roughly 50% since then. While the company's fourth quarter results do show the impressive growth potential in the business, there are still significant questions left unanswered as to whether the company can better monetize its user base, while maintaining that delicate balance with customer service. Given the wide spread in analyst estimates, it seems likely that Facebook is going to remain an interesting and volatile story for a while yet.


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Investopedia: Yahoo! Still Has So Much To Do

There's still life in Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO), but there's also still a long and difficult road ahead of the company. Marissa Mayer has been at the helm for only a short time and fundamental repositionings in strategy, culture, and so on do not happen overnight. While Yahoo! most definitely faces serious threats from the likes of Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) and Facebook (Nasdaq:FB), the company has assets and opportunities that still offer some hope.

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Investopedia: Could Google Actually Be Underrated?

Even if the efficient market hypothesis has severe drawbacks and deficiencies, it's still hard to imagine that the stock of a company as large and well-followed as Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) could be meaningfully undervalued. And yet, a long-term discounted cash flow analysis suggests that it's at least possible. While Motorola's operations will pressure margins and there's ample competition in search, mobile and online ads, Google still looks like a stock to consider in the tech space.

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Investopedia: Pandora Still Has Hope

Why any company would want to tie themselves in any way to Pandora's Box (which contained all the evils of mankind) is beyond me, but there's more to Pandora (NYSE:P) than a name. Pandora has quickly established itself as the dominant Internet radio platform, but many investors have struggled with reconciling Pandora's market share to its ability to monetize its user base and (eventually) post solid operating leverage. Although the post-earnings reaction on December 5 seems overdone, it's not really surprising given how much of Pandora's value lies in the future and how sensitive that value is to even small changes today.

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Investopedia: Recent Scandals Show Wall Street Still Needs A Lot Of Watching

Analysts and fund managers come and go, banks and asset management firms rise and fall, and investing trends appear and disappear with surprising regularity. And yet, for all of that change, one thing seems to remain the same: despite pretty clear (if not tiresomely thorough) rules and compliance procedures, people continue to flout laws and common sense in the overall pursuit of making a buck.

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Investopedia: Can Facebook Get Through Another Lock-up Expiration Quietly?

Nothing ever seems quite normal when it involves Facebook (NYSE:FB). So it's worth wondering what will happen to the stock as the company, the market and (it would seem) the world at large all deal with another sizable lock-up expiry that will add hundreds of millions of shares to the float. Considering that Facebook recently posted some encouraging financial results, it may be the case that putting this lock-up expiration in the rearview mirror marks the end of the "what's wrong with Facebook?" meme within the financial press.

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Investopedia: Bull Vs. Bear - Facebook's New Revenue Strategies Carry Real Risks

Question: Will Facebook's new plan for ads help push up its stock price?  

Bear's Response
Apart from the debate over whether Apple's (Nasdaq:AAPL) new iPhone is a great leap forward or the first warning of stalling innovation, perhaps the most popular topic in finance writing right now is "What's wrong with Facebook (Nasdaq:FB)?" and "Can it fix the problem?" It seems pretty clear that the more starry-eyed investors have had to revise their expectations down, but Facebook's management has been more assertive lately now that they have oncoming revenue growth strategies that will make a significant impact.

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Investopedia: Bull Vs. Bear - Facebook May Not Have The Long-Term Value

Question: Did Facebook and its investors have realistic expectations for the company's growth potential?

Bear's Response
"What's wrong with Facebook (Nasdaq:FB)?" is probably one of the most popular themes in financial/investment writing these days. The poor performance of this stock post-IPO has plenty of people speculating that there was a social media bubble (and that the bubble is now deflating), and now there are rumblings that Facebook is already on the wrong side of its growth curve. While I do think a lot of the pessimism and criticism of Facebook is overheated click-bait, I do believe that the company is growing more slowly than investors expected, and investors may want to take a closer look at some reasons to avoid Facebook.

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Investopedia: Jive Could Be The Next Big Thing

With all of the hype that still surrounds the social media and cloud computing spaces, putting the two together sounds a little like a hype supernova. To be sure, there is a lot of hype and hope with Jive Software (Nasdaq:JIVE), a stock that IPO'ed not all that long ago and now sits close to new lows. Although the valuation on this stock still looks pretty rich, it's not hard to see that Jive could become a hot property if it can prove that enterprise customers really are willing to spend money to facilitate workplace collaboration.

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Investopedia: Facebook Not The Worst IPO Ever

Hyperbole is very nearly the oxygen of the financial writer, and so it's surprising to see plenty of doom and gloom around Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) these days. The stock has very definitely underperformed since it went public, and the expiration of the first lock-up period (and potentially 271 million shares up for sale) may only make it worse. Whether Facebook goes down as the worst IPO ever is a story that is far from written, but investors would do well to pay attention to the lessons it has already offered.

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Investopedia: Growing Pains Bedeviling Groupon

What a difference a decade makes. Unlike the "what, me worry?" attitude that dominated the prior tech bubble, investors seem considerably more interested in the immediate financial performance of companies like Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) and Groupon (Nasdaq:GRPN). With Groupon once again disappointing the Street, it looks like management needs to rebuild its credibility with institutions, even if the long-term growth story looks interesting at these prices.

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Investopedia: Yahoo Makes A Bold Move Bringing In New Leadership

It was no secret that Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) was looking for a new CEO, but much of the news in recent weeks has centered around who didn't want the job. Consequently, sentiment was building that the one-time Internet pioneer was going to keep interim CEO Levinsohn and remove the "interim" from his title. However, Yahoo! wouldn't be Yahoo! without throwing a curveball, and the company threw what looks like a doozy - hiring Marissa Mayer from Google (Nasdaq:GOOG).

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