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Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

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Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#31

Post by loganfrederick »

czhiddy wrote: post #19

I'm curious - can someone explain to me how Yahoo still has a higher P/E ratio than say, Apple? For that matter, why is EBay's P/E higher than Google's?

It's always a case by case basis and I'm not a professional analyst, but I could come up with a few (flimsy) reasons.

Basically boils down to odds and the change in growth rate. Just because a company is consistently, wildly profitable does not mean they should have a high P/E ratio. P/E is often much more influenced by the growth rate for earnings. With Yahoo and eBay, investors are saying that these companies are more likely to grow very quickly than Apple and Google, which makes perfect sense since those two giants will most likely grow between some range. Investors must believe Yahoo is either be a huge hit or miss and eBay must have some reasons for people to believe they can juice their growth rate higher quickly, perhaps based on their acquisitions, room to expand their fees, acquiring new customers etc.

*Edit: Added note on Yahoo, its assets (as the Asian comment below reminded me to add) could very well be worth more than its current valuation. This article explains how: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/yahoo-shareholder-bartz/

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#32

Post by uncertain »

wh-uws wrote: post #25
uncertain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Santa Clara, CA. I'm just worried that if I move out there I'll be left hanging while I have expenses to keep up with.

Are you interviewing anywhere else? You could probably use the off as leverage. Yahoo's engineering core is still well respected in the industry. Everybody just knows that none of the people in charge have a clue as to what to do with all of that talent.

I am planning to interview with several other companies. But by then I will need to decide whether I want to stick with Yahoo or not. I've heard great things about working at Yahoo (and the downsides) and the offer is fantastic, but my gut instinct is telling me to reconsider..

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#33

Post by jrockway »

uncertain wrote: post #17
pavel_lishin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you relocate to? I'm assuming that if Yahoo gave you a good job offer, you'd be able to find other employment in the area without too much problem.

Santa Clara, CA. I'm just worried that if I move out there I'll be left hanging while I have expenses to keep up with.

Ask for a signing bonus of n months expenses (where n is how long you think it will take to find a job), and then put that in a savings account. Problem sovled. And if Yahoo ends up being okay, you have a big chunk of money you can apply to the down payment of a house (or fund a team of pro bike racers, or wahtever).

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#34

Post by shoham »

czhiddy wrote: post #19

I'm curious - can someone explain to me how Yahoo still has a higher P/E ratio than say, Apple? For that matter, why is EBay's P/E higher than Google's?

I'm not sure that this is true. Yahoo's earnings are around 1.2 B, and Market Cap is around 20 Billion, whereas Apple's Earnings are around 20 Billion, and their market cap is around 400 Billion. Very similar, unless my numbers are outdated.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#36

Post by czhiddy »

shoham wrote: post #34
czhiddy wrote: post #19

I'm curious - can someone explain to me how Yahoo still has a higher P/E ratio than say, Apple? For that matter, why is EBay's P/E higher than Google's?

I'm not sure that this is true. Yahoo's earnings are around 1.2 B, and Market Cap is around 20 Billion, whereas Apple's Earnings are around 20 Billion, and their market cap is around 400 Billion. Very similar, unless my numbers are outdated.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl+yhoo+ebay+goog+pe+...

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#37

Post by jmathai »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

If vultures are descending, I would think it would be better to wait. The bidding war will temporarily bump up your stock price & options, giving you a better time to sell them. Then the vultures will offer buy-outs to encourage employees to leave. I doubt the vultures will be overly generous in their buy-outs but it can still amount to a substantial amount of cash if you've been there a while.

Most people's stock options are so underwater they're eternally worthless. An increase of a few bucks in the stock price isn't worth the cost on your morale.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#38

Post by w1ntermute »

tdurden wrote: post #23
czhiddy wrote: post #19

I'm curious - can someone explain to me how Yahoo still has a higher P/E ratio than say, Apple? For that matter, why is EBay's P/E higher than Google's?

Asian assets are a very large part of the 'P'

Yahoo! is only a minority shareholder in Yahoo! Japan, with SoftBank owning 40+% of the shares.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#39

Post by bryanlarsen »

czhiddy wrote: post #19

I'm curious - can someone explain to me how Yahoo still has a higher P/E ratio than say, Apple? For that matter, why is EBay's P/E higher than Google's?

Price to sales is a better number for Yahoo, as it is for any company that is either losing money or on the edge of doing so. But with P/S you have to compare companies to very similar competitors like Google and cannot compare to hardware manufacturers like Apple or resellers like Amazon.
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