japan is cooperating closely with jack ma who controls alibaba. and, in fact, given the situation between those two, there's an expectation now that neither of those potential transactions will take place. i am told, however, that there may be a willingness, at least, to consider a taxable deal, one which would be far less complicated on the part of the yahoo!. but it's not clear that that is going anywhere, at least at this time. just to step back quickly, yahoo! shareholders have put the company under pressure to try to do something with the significant stakes they feel has great value. the problem has been figuring out a way to do that in a tax advantage way, not losing so much of the gains to taxes, the capital gains. yahoo! has replaced much of its board recently. it's got a new ceo. the dynamic at the company has also changed significantly. nonetheless, this is a disappointment to yahoo! shareholders. that stock down sharply this afternoon. >> down about 6.5%. thank you, david. john, if you can take a stab at this. obviously there's disappoi

alibaba saying q4 coming in at 0.77 yen. overall saying the focus on improving membership quality rather than volume so overall pretty good numbers for q-4. of course we have this chinese commerce firm has been in heated negotiations with yahoo! but talks have come to a standstill. both parties apparently failed to agree how best to value alibaba's online retail business, a $17 billion deal swap. joining us to talk everything alibaba is a columnist reuters breaking news who believes, of course, the two parties are bound to live unhappily ever happen. can i just quickly get your brief reaction to those numbers that just came out before we talk about this deal? >> well, the numbers are not very impressive, of course, because alibaba is a company highly correlated with chinese trade and the small business of china. of could course chinese exporters are not doing well in the house of the small business. alibaba will have to work through next year. it will be a year of transformation for them. we are expecting to see lower growth

all things "d" says talks regarding sale with alibaba have broken off.alk about that and zynga which is set to post its first-quarter reports as a company after today's closing bell. company behind "words with friends" and "farmville," up 57% since mid january. don't you wish -- simon can't believe it. don't you wish you had that in your portfolio? in part, that gain is because it made a boatload of money for facebook last year and because zynga is considered a leader in social and mobile gaming, a potentially much bigger and broader core audience than old-school gaming. let's drill down from the tech columnist and cnbc's julia boorstin and cnbc.com's net-net john carney. i'm going to start with you, julia. weigh in on the yahoo! news as well, as well as zynga. what dooing do you think about zynga and what might happen to it in light of the trend in gaming, online gaming and mobile phone gaming? >> reporter: well, sue, first off, i have to say zynga is reporting earnings after the bell today. expected to report three cents in eps on $302 million in reven

talks between yahoo and chinese search engine alibaba are at a standstill. yahoo has been trying to arrange a $17 billion deal for its ownership stakes in alibaba and yahoo japan in such a way as to avoid taxes while it revamps its business. another company in transition is avon. while the firm is looking for a replacement to long-time c.e.o. andrea jung, it had a disappointing fourth quarter. before unusual charges, earnings came in well shy of estimates. revenues also fell, and the company didn't give much guidance of what to expect financially this year. after seeing some morning selling, shares wound up with a gain of 1.5%. volume quadrupled as investors try to sort out avon's future. it announced layoffs as it tries to stabilize its business, and reassured investors its dividend will be maintained. we have more on a-v-p on nbr.com under the "blogs" tab. >> direct usa. shares ended down a session one percent but the stock gains in afterhours a action. they get 70 we mentioned zynga's earnings after the close tonight earlier. met-life also updated investo

the news that yahoo's attempt to sell alibaba off has been the surprise news. sue herrera, john fort following developments. simon h oftenbs, what can you tell us about the news it's actually breaking off the talks to sell the asian assets to alibaba. >> the talks have been called off not to say some kind of arrangement won't be reached, when i was talking to folks who were close to the negotiations here they were saying they expected them to go on for another month anyway. the issue is we're in a lame duck session of yahoo's board with several members planning not to stand for reelection and trust is frayed between the two sides, unclear whether they will be able to get much done right now. >> stock is down 5.5%. sue, the rest of the market look at quiet volume. economic data digested, i saw you and bill yesterday talk about what the impact has pen to the markets year-to-date, the market is up so much in 2012. >> i think that is true, maria, also a lot of the sideline money came in the market in the early part of the year, now everybody is waiting to see exact

after david faber confirmed the company has broken off talks to sell the asian assets to partners alibaba and soft bank. yahoo down. >>> investors getting ready for zynga, first earnings report as a public company, moments away. as soon as the company reports the quarterly financials. >>> dow down 85 points, 12,878. victory on the reversal of fortune. volume anemic 700 million trades. nasdaq finishing positive, giving up all the early losses, 2931. s&p 500 also close but no cigar, down one point, 1350. get to bob pisani with more details right now. >> what a confusing, difficult day, 15 minutes ago i was write headlines stock lower on greek uncertainty, we started moving up, up here as we were going in the close, that headline longer valid ywe ended in the positive territory. there is a lot of uncertainty over what is going on in greece, finance ministers did apparently call off a meeting, a physical meeting it's not clear they would have some kind of teleconference tomorrow to talk about the greek bail out terms but what is clear is greece has not yet met all the conditions that the fina

. >>> yahoo hit a snag in negotiations to sell most of the asian holdings to china's alibaba.ajor shareholder will lead a mute mutiny and try to seize four seats. >>> the ipad will have a smaller screen according to the wall street journal to compete with rivals with seven inch screens. >>> zynga reported a net loss for the first quarter as a public company. >>> after whitney houston's death, prices were raised on two of her albums on itunes in britain. one was increased 60%, the other 25%. it has apologized, they say it was a mistake. >>> there was more reaction last night to the controversy over contraception coverage for women who work for church-run ins dugss. last night on politics nation, california senator barbara boxer spoke about the blunt amendment to allow employers or companies to opt out of covering something they object to on religious or moral grounds. >> this is so extreme, you know, they want to take us back to the medical dark ages. if you take the issue of contraception, we know that well over 90%, well over 95% of women some time in their life time used con

has been attempting to sell off most of its 40% stake in alibaba and its 35% share holding in yahoo!an in a complex deal valued at no less than 17 billion u.s. dollars. let's look at how yahoo! share prices have been doing. it actually gained ground since the firing of its former ceo, carl bartz last year. it is still down over a 12 month period. on tuesday, one of its biggest investors announced plans to fight for control of the company's board and dan loeb says he will be seeking four seats on yahoo! board. >>> coming up next, the summit may be over, but china says its support for europe will continue. but what form will that actually take? >>> and china's vice president wraps up meetings in washington today before heading west. we'll tell you why the state of iowa is so excited to see him. whwhatat m makakeses t thehe r ststorore e didiffffererene? yoyou u wawalklk i intna coconvnvenentitiononalal ms ststorore,e, i it't's s ry nonot t ababouout t yoy. ththeyey s sayay, , "w"weleu wawantnt a a f firirm m bebn lilie e onon o onene o of ff yoyou u wawantnt a a s sofou cacan n lilie e

alibaba shares are halted overseas.or a very long time. >> oracle, interesting, a lot of people are saying you're going to see a lot of $2 billion to $3 billion deals. they'll do a couple to divert their attention while they're working on something giant. >> look at the premium on this, unbelievable. >> it was financing, the alibaba financing was that expected to be a -- >> they've been talking to banks for the past couple of weeks. that's been out and about. the question is with it being halted is that a function of the financing or because we're going to get something across the table. >> people were expecting it before february to nominate the board of directors. we see the board movement at yahoo! that was the magic window. >> you want to handicap it? >> i've learned never to handicap anything with yahoo!. >> good answer. >> with yahoo!. >> just the past couple of minutes you had a spike in the euro back towards the 133 level, and i'm guessing what's when the futures turned around as well so the weaker dollar, stron

alibaba was the big winner in hong kong trading.hat's because its chinese parent company had announced it wanted to take it private. so alibaba.com jumped 43% in early trading. shanghai composite up 1%. the main aussie benchmark basically flat but in positive territory by the end of wednesday's session. charles? >> that is it for this edition of "world business today." i'm charles hudson in london. >> and i'm pauline chu in hong kong. you're watching cnn, the world's business leader. good-bye for now. ask me. [ male announcer ] even if you think you can live with your old mattress... ask me how i've never slept better. [ male announcer ] ...why not talk to one of the 6 million people who've switched to the most highly recommended bed in america? it's not a sealy, a simmons, or a serta. ask me about my tempur-pedic. ask me how i can finally sleep all night. ask me how great my back feels every morning. [ male announcer ] did you know there's a tempur-pedic for everybody? tempur-pedic beds now come in soft, firm, and everything in bet

"wall street journal" reporting that alibaba will buy back shares from yahoo!.aria and bill, over to you. >> seema, thank you very much. we are heading toward the close with about 35 minutes left in the day. we're watching technology. aren't we all. the nasdaq near that 11-year high, within 100 points of the 3,000 level now. so what's the best way to play it these days. let's start talking numbers. chris is here with us, head of technical analysis. what a juggernaut, the technology sector has been lately. >> if you compare it to the s&p, or the dow transport for the russell 2000, it's the strongest looking chart. if you look at ten years, a lot of memory in the $50 to $60 level. we've rallied there, failed in the past, rallied there, failed in the past. but we're up to the $60 level right now. we would use any weakness in the interim to step in. we think it's one of the stro strongest sectors of the market right now. >> there was a lot of repair work to be done after the crash of the bubble ten years ago. amazing. intel, there's one you're looking at specificall

going to actually be able to successfully spin off those asian assets in the form of the stakes in alibaba. >> here's yahoo! creating no wealth, no jobs. yahoo! we talk about make these changes, make that changes. i'm not trying to minimize the complaints about facebook. i'm in awe of what facebook has done. take a look at "usa today." there's a remarkable piece about how social media was the dominant theme of super bowl ads. each piece talks about facebook. you talk with sally smith, ceo of buffalo wild wings. one of the top restaurants on facebook. this is a remarkable jutter naugh juggernaut. >> coca-cola has a fan page. not even made by coca-cola. made literally by true fans of coca-cola who are on this facebook page sf. >> don't you find that remarkable? >> how does facebook monetize? can they? can they capture the revenue somehow? >> i called procter & gamble. literally i'm using that as a straw man for maybe too many cases. proctor identifies facebook as being the single most economic way to be able to get in touch with people. when you're a consumer goods company if you can get peo