Yahoo Shareholders Steaming As Share Price Hits 5-Year Low

Sam Gustin notes: If Yahoo shareholders were about to pop their lids before, they're even more apoplectic now. After Yahoo shares fell to $17.75, their lowest point in the last five years, some took to Yahoo's own message boards to unload their grief:

"17.75 thanks to that greedy asshole Yang," wrote one.

"He is an egomaniac who is so rich that shareholders mean nothing!" wrote another.

Shares were nearly a dollar below where they were just before Microsoft made its unsolicited bid for the company.

The new low came on the same day that a top analyst predicted that the economic downturn would take more of a toll on display ads, which Yahoo had been hoping would help it challenge Google, than text-based search ads, Google's specialty.

Yahoo shareholders are stewing, considering the company's board rejected a $33 per share offer by Microsoft, only to come crawling back at that number after Microsoft had walked away. At the time, Yahoo's chief executive Jerry Yang said Microsoft's offer undervalued Yahoo. But if the market, and not one man, is to be believed, Microsoft's offer vastly overvalued Yahoo.

As of today, Yahoo's market value stands at nearly $13 billion below what shareholder would have received had Yang and the board accepted Microsoft's offer.