A Fool Looks Back

Seek and ye shall find ... trouble in search.

Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO  ) co-founder and onetime CEO resigned this week, potentially opening the door for the asset gutting that employees are dreading but some opportunistic investors have been cheering for.

Search was supposed to be the juiciest business in cyberspace, but there's unrest. Yahoo! outsourced its search business to Bing, but Microsoft's online business grew by a mere 10% in its latest quarter.

Market leader Google (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) is growing substantially faster, but things aren't exactly rosy at Big G. The search giant generated a 34% surge in clicks in its latest quarter, but the average cost per click fell by 8%. Are advertisers just getting smarter about the bidding process, or is the perceived value of a targeted online ad diminishing? The more likely explanation is the unfortunate state of the global economy, but keep an eye on cost-per-click averages as the economy improves to make sure that this isn't a grimmer trend for the industry.

Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

• Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK  ) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, turning shutterbugs into shudder bugs.
• Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI  ) has a town-hall meeting in the works, but it has nothing to do with politics. Beatles legend Ringo Starr will be the marquee attraction, giving subscribers the ability to ask the music icon questions in an event hosted by Russell Brand. Only half of the Fab Four is still around, so we may as well enjoy these opportunities while we can.
• Bernstein analyst Carlos Kirjner lowered his price target on Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX  ) , from $79 to $71. A day later, shares of the video giant were trading in the triple digits for the first time in months. Ouch.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

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