Yahoo Announces Quarterly Results: Net Profit Dropped to $293 Million

Yahoo (YHOO) announced its quarterly results on Tuesday. The company reported adjusted earnings of 21 cents per share for the quarter, beating Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate by 4 cents.

Shares of Yahoo, which fired Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Carol Bartz in early September, before the end of the third quarter, rose roughly 3 percent to $15.98 in the after-hours trading on Tuesday. The stock has dropped 7 percent this year.

Profit in the third-quarter totaled $293 million or 23 cents per share, compared with net income of $396 million or 29 cents per share for the same period last year.

Tim Morse, who is filling in as Yahoo's interim CEO while also working as Chief Financial Officer, told analysts on Tuesday that he couldn't discuss what the company's next step might be or when it might take it.

The board is actively looking at the full range of options available to return the company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation. The objective is to deliver on the company's potential and create value for employees, advertisers, users and shareholders, said Morse.

Most of Yahoo's attraction lies in its Internet investments in Asia and a worldwide audience of about 700 million people each month.

If Microsoft were to return with another bid for Yahoo, it would be at a much lower price than the $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, that it offered in May 2008. Microsoft walked away when Yang didn't immediately jump at the chance to sell at such a high price.

Appearing at an Internet conference late on Tuesday, Microsoft Corp. CEO, Steve Ballmer, said it was a good thing the attempt to buy Yahoo in 2008 didn't pan out because the economy later descended into its deepest recession since World War II.

Sometimes, you're lucky in life, Ballmer said, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, With that said, there are a lot of great things at Yahoo.

The only company that has publicly said it may make a bid for Yahoo this time around is the Alibaba Group, a Chinese Internet giant.