The! Biggest! News! of! the! Day! - Yahoo

The following is a repost from my blog on Schaeffer's...

When I signed off last night I noted that Yahoo (YHOO) and IBM were out with earnings. IBM appears to be getting a small lift on the news as the stock tries to bounce from its annual lows. YHOO is the bigger story...

If you have perused any sort of financial related media since the close yesterday you probably already know the story - sales were below expectations, the EPS number was in line with forecasts, and the company delayed its ad-system upgrade. The stock is poised to open down more than 10-percent. And while that information is all well and good to know, it is not the most import issue to focus on...

What is? Well I am glad you asked...

You see, the biggest issue is whether this disappointing news will force Yahoo to drop the exclamation point from its name. Yes, that's right! I said it. The issue no one wants to say out loud - Yahoo may no long be able to justify keeping an exclamation point in its name!!!

For full disclosure, I should say that I am entirely biased in the issue as this "point of contention" has caused quite the rift between myself and our editorial department. As regular readers can attest to, the grammar guardians have long since given up on trying to rectify my ramblings.

Part of this is not my fault - the education system (grade school, high school and college) let me slip through with barely being literate. But part of it is my fault as I am not always willing to follow accepted convention. There was a time when the content constables would try to help me along and point out that "Yahoo" was really "Yahoo!" but replying with - "well that is stupid, I am not going to do that" - quickly put an end to that effort.

I bring up the exclamation point controversy for good reason. As I discussed last month, YHOO has remained an analyst favorite despite signs that the long-term uptrend was running out of steam. Could it be that part of the enthusiasm is due to the exclamation point? After all, exclamation points are exciting and who doesn't love excitement!?!? As they say - don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle...

If the company can no longer hold onto its "point" then perhaps downgrades are something to be wary of? After all, the stock headed into the announcement with 20 of 24 analysts (83 percent) ranking the stock with a "buy" rating, according to Zacks.

A breakdown in YHOO here also has implications for the Internet HOLDRS (HHH) chart I discussed at the end of this chart slide show.

So there you have it - the "news" that you won't hear anyone else talking about, but will certainly be in the back of everyone's minds?

After the action gets rolling I will check in on the charts of both YHOO and the HHH to see what impact this is having...