11/11/08

Rick Aristotle Muniz's column on The Motley Fool  is fun to read even if you never agree with his assessments (although most times, you might). He's proof that business news need not be boring:

"... You're on your own, Yahoo. You're sad. You're miserable. But why can't I take my eyes off of you?" he wrote following Yahoo's less-than-steller third quarter. And despite the tongue-lashing, despite the fact that Yahoo is trading at about one-third what it did earlier this year, Muniz comes up with three reasons traders should buy:

-- Yahoo is profitable, generating a $1 billion annual cash flow, and has $3.3 billion in cash and marketable securities.

-- Even though Microsoft says it's no longer interested in buying Yahoo, "Do you really think that a company that was willing to pay as much as $33 a share for Yahoo a few months ago can't be talked into forking over $15 a share?," he wrote, and pointed out that Microsoft still hasn't solved its problem with it's distant third search-engine ranking.

-- And Yahoo has made significant investments in Asia, including China's Alibaba, South Korea's Gmarket and Yahoo Japan. While they've taken a pounding in recent months, those investents "will be quick to bounce back."