Yahoo's Teenie Triumphs

When it comes to making meaningless strides towards outshining once-dwarfed competitors, no one shines brighter than Yahoo. Yahoo is finally ahead of Google... in the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) report on electronic-business Web sites. The report ranks websites on a 100 point scale and measures customer satisfaction of the search engine, news and information found on the site. This year, Yahoo rose to a score of 79, while Google dipped to a 78.

In terms of making strides toward convincing the market it isn't a complete train wreck, Yahoo has a ways to go. The market still doesn't value Yahoo as a bargain even though it's lost a quarter of its value in the last three months and its former equity research analyst President Sue Decker just bought $1.1 worth of Yahoo stock with her own money. Despite the downfall, Yahoo is valued at a 47x P/E ratio, which is still more than Google's 43x.

The consensus opinion of equity research analysts may cast some doubt on those willing to take the plunge with Decker and snap up Yahoo stock. 19 of 39 analysts profiled by Thomson have a "buy" rating on Yahoo (3 of those are a "strong buy") while only 1 has a "sell" recommendation (the rest are "holds"). JPMorgan even upgraded Yahoo at the end of May. Buying Yahoo at the end of May - not that great of a move, as you would have lost 16% on your investment. The bullishness of research analysts in the face of reality is a sure sign to keep dumping Yahoo shares, as TheStreet.com advises.

P.S. Yahoo was down over 1.75% to $24.12 a share, inching closer to its 52-week low of $22.44.

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