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Net profits down, but after-hours trading is upbeat

A nearly 19 percent drop in net profits gave Yahoo investors no joy during the Internet company's second quarter earnings call.

The revenue gains arrived for Yahoo in their Q2 2008 financials. But that coupled with yesterday's announced cessation of histrionics with investor Carl Icahn didn't add up to a bottom line profit.

Yahoo declared revenue of $1.798 billion for the second quarter. Year over year, that represented a 6 percent gain.

Unhappily, net income did not follow that formula for Jerry Yang and company. $131 million, or 9 cents per share, dropped from $161 million (11 cents) in Q2 2007.

Yahoo president Sue Decker referred to the company's performance as gaining "momentum in the second quarter." Investors responded to this in after hours trading. Also Yahoo closed 27 cents lower than they opened today, at 5:55 pm EDT trading had pushed it all the way to $21.87, 47 cents past the market close price.

Whatever happens in Q3, Yahoo executive Chad Dickerson won't be around to see what happens. The now-former leader of Yahoo's Brickhouse project incubator opted for a position with the online marketplace Etsy, where he will start as CTO on September 1st.