Yahoo Investors Back to Their Senses After 'All Semel's Eve' Bender

Well, that didn’t take long. Yahoo investors, who ebulliently spiked the company’s share price in celebration of the Monday ouster / planned resignation of CEO Terry Semel, seemed to wise up a bit yesterday, reclaiming much of the stock’s overnight gains. Shares of Yahoo opened at $28.51 yesterday and fell 1.74% to close at $27.63.

Why? Perhaps investors realized that in the midst of Monday’s orgy of high-fives and back slaps, they’d completely ignored Yahoo’s downbeat earnings commentary (the company said Monday that 2007 revenue will be 2% to 4% lower than originally forecast). Perhaps they realized that incoming CEO Jerry Yang isn’t necessarily known for his business acumen. Or, perhaps, they realized that, even without a separation agreement, Semel may end up being the one who comes out ahead in all this, simply by getting the hell out.