Yahoo Shares, Tech ETFs Sink After Microsoft Rescinds Offer

May 05, 2008 at 11:00 am by Tom Lydon

Yahoo has some splainin’ to do – a shareholder sell-off sent technology and internet exchange traded funds (ETFs) lower this morning.

Shares for Yahoo (YHOO) fell more than 16% midday after Microsoft (MSFT) took back its offer of $47.5 billion after months of back-and-forth, reports Michael Liedtke for the Associated Press. CEO Jerry Yang may only have a few months to convince Wall Street that refusing the takeover bid was a wise move. If he doesn’t, analysts are predicting he could be replaced or forced to accept another, lower, offer.

The Internet HOLDRs (HHH) took an especially huge hit in early trading, down nearly 4%. Yahoo is the fund’s largest holding, with 27.1% of the assets. The fund had been down as much as 6.8% earlier in the day, reports Tomi Kilgore for Thomson Financial.

Among the other technology ETFs trading lower today are:

Morgan Stanley Technology (MTK): Yahoo is 4%; Microsoft is 2.7%; down 5.1% year-to-date
Vanguard Information Technology (VGT): Microsoft is 11.3%; Yahoo is 1.1%; down 6.6% year-to-date
iShares Dow Jones US Technology (IYW): Microsoft is 12.4%; Yahoo is 1.7%; down 7% year-to-date