Yahoo: Shares dip to 5-year low; AOL deal this month?

Things just keep getting worse for Yahoo. The company's stock reached a five-year low today, closing at $15.31 - or less than half of the $31 per share that Microsoft had offered to pay for Yahoo in February.

On top of that, the long-awaited advertising partnership with Google has been delayed so the Department of Justice can further evaluate it, even though Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in August that the companies didn't believe the deal needed regulatory approval. Instead, he said at the time, the companies were being proactive to address possible anti-trust concerns before they closed the deal. For a deeper look at the implications involved, check out Larry Dignan's earlier post Yahoo: What happens if Google deal doesn’t go through?

Finally, the uncertainty around a Yahoo-AOL deal grows. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay has written in a note to investors that a deal between the two companies is unlikely but Techcrunch is now reporting that a deal could be announced as early as this month, citing unnamed sources.

Yahoo will report its third quarter earnings on Oct. 21. Already, Wall Street is not expecting good news so expect the focus to shift on outlooks for Q4 and 2009.