for the fun of it, i'll make some calls. We'll see what happens. 1) yahoo: 21-24 (won't be 15-18 because a fair amount of community will hold out thinking this may be a msft bluff) 2) msft: 31-33 open, 33-34 close? 3) goog: 595 gap up, 620 close... i am long msft, goog, and straddled yhoo into this (on fundamental valuation reasons on msft ...)
if YHOO is still in the mid-20s on monday, I'm going to write some calls, if it falls into the teens, I'm going to write some puts.
One thing to keep in mind about Yahoo - They approved a poison pill on all existing staff right after MSFT made its offer, making itself worth much less than what MSFT offer. Once MSFT drop the bid, this particular issue becomes an obstacle for any company with the right mind to initiate a bid for yahoo from now on.
The employee poison pill isn't a big deal. MSFT was trying to buy the company FOR the talent there. They're not going to cut a ton of jobs as soon as they take over.
The poison pill is a bargaining tactic. No firm that wishes to remain independent approves a pill after a legit bid is made.
Yahoo should have taken the deal, I think yahoo is asking for toooo much, the stock was trading in the teens prior to MSFT stepping in and offering over $40 billion, YHOO should drop as much as it rose on Feb 1st, 2008....
I think it'll take some time before it fully drops, but when it does it'll go into the mid-teens. Right now there's still enough speculation that MSFT is just bluffing to hold the stock into the low 20s. Who knows, but one thing's for sure, monday will be one volatile day for YHOO.