WebProNews

Up and down, down and up - it just sort of meandered along for a while.  But on Friday afternoon, Yahoo’s stock took more of an “up, up, and away” approach due to Alibaba.com’s impending IPO.

As we first reported 20 days ago, Yahoo intends to buy about ten percent of Alibaba’s available shares.  The full effect of this may not have been fully computed until the end of last week, however, when an American Technology Research analyst announced that the move could add $2.50 per share to Yahoo’s stock.

That news alone (the IPO hasn’t occurred yet) was enough to bump Yahoo’s stock up about $2.30 (it closed at 33.63).  It’ll be interesting to see if the climb continues in today’s trading, or if investors slow down upon approaching the predicted gain of $2.50.  All eyes will be on Yahoo once again come November 6th, the day that Alibaba intends to hold its IPO - another bump at that point in time would only make sense.

Still, since other American companies (read: Google) haven’t had much luck in China, these developments are much more than hype.  Yahoo already owns a 39 percent stake in the Alibaba Group, and an additional investment in Alibaba.com should only strengthen its hold in that market.

Meanwhile, Google’s stock is sitting near $680.