Yahoo (YHOO) at $40 - $45 per share? Possible Microsoft buyout? What do you think?

Microsoft is launching Microsoft Live soon, probably w/ Vista. If MS Live is not popular, then MS may think of buying YHOO. At this point, I won't bet on it; even though there's recent news about MS letting go MS Live's lead guy.

I'm not saying it's not possible, but MS would have wasted a lot of resources/works done on MS Live if they decide to just buy YHOO at this point.

Since I'm using Y! Mail, I prefer to have 3 way competition. On the other hand, I have some YHOO stocks so I'll be really happy if YHOO got bought out and jumped to $40-45.

Unlikely - at least for a couple of years. Wall Street is full of people keen to encourage M&A and the stories are often about MSFT because they have a large cash balance and could clearly buy just about anyone. This sounds like just another one of those stories.

I think YHOO would be attractive to MSFT at the right price, however companies are almsost never prepared to sell themselves at the "right" price. A company the size of MSFT will have looked at half a dozen targets every year - probably including YHOO. If they reached the stage of making an approach I doubt YHOO would be prepared to sell at a price that makes sense. This is the not the right market to be be announcing multi billion dollar hostile deals that reduce earnings.

One day they might get it together, but all this story tells me is that some people who have "skin in the game" think it would make sense for that day to be today.

Probably someone with a ton of yhoo hyping the stock hoping to drive the price up some so they can unload. But stranger things have been known to happen, like HP buying Compaq and Compaq buying DEC. Both very strange. But neither of those were cash buyouts, just worthless stock swaps--worthless as far as the hired help was concerned, not the stockholders.

Yahoo has been down for years now, as they have ignored many opportunities, that Google has no longer. Google were given into search for first, offered up opponents first, prolonged heavily with large administration first. Yahoo has sat on the sidelines gazing the boat bypass through. i easily idea Yahoo inventory would have more effective this previous month, because they own a 29% stake in Alibaba, which went public very last month, yet no longer some thing has made their inventory pop, except the yearly "Microsoft or somebody else gossip is thinking paying for Yahoo".

Microsoft is never going to buy Yahoo! for $50 Billion

With that kind of money Microsoft could buy Occidental Petroleum which actually made $5 Billion last year or MetLife or Motorola which made $4 Billion last year.

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No matter MSFT buys it or not, Yahoo can go up to 40 in years time.