Yahoo Shares Jump, Mistaking a Regular Steve-Carol Meeting for More

Dear Wall Street analysts and other investors:

Yahoo shares had a little lift today on a rumor that Microsoft was interested in buying it again, all due to a meeting that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had on Monday.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Microsoft is not buying Yahoo, as entertaining as a sequel to “Hostile Takeover Disaster” of a few years ago would be to BoomTown.

Instead, the meeting–which I had also heard about–was one of the regular ones that the pair have, to get up to speed on the progress of their long-term search and advertising partnership.

Yahoo shares, which have been stronger lately and opened at $16.91, rose a couple percentage points, but settled down by day’s end to $17.06 and were down to $17 in after-hours trading.