so this is very upbeat of carol barts. this is not conservative at all, and i think this is exactly wah restors want to hear. it doesn't sound like they'll be waiting all that much longer to see something like that because, like i say, she has a number of initiatives. sink with your mobile home, the homepage which they launched this afternoon, that homepage will sync with your mobile phone starting next week if you want it to. a lot of cool thing, melissa. a lot of things that they want to bring you back into yahoo!, over and over and that will increase from the site. >> anything you heart heard from your brother? >> the most critical thing i heard was the page. we've heard about the various things and you heard about microsoft launching this and this was a big catalyst for them and i believe this page could be something that propelled them to the next level where they need to get to. >> dr. j, we'll check with you later in the show. john najarian tweeting for us, you can follow the tweets on the twitter page. fast money t

jim, i know you're watching carol bart. i mean, yahoo, what's going on there?e?>> well, everybody seems to love yahoo. maybe they have the same question on carol barts that i do but yahoo has been on a tear for three days andnd really see like it's reaching. the thing that strikes me as interesting is we're seeing the big plays. volatility has been grinding down for six months, eight months and getting to the levels where it's more attractive to o just buy in the money calls than to buy the shares outright. inpete has been banging this drum. when volatility gets to a certain level it behooves the retail investors to make that trade instead of buying the shares. we're seeing it today in yahoo and apple. in yahoo today the august 15 call if your in the money calls traded at a tremendous amount. looked like someone establishing a long position. like a ten-year flashback in 1999 when techs were leading us. if some techings had good earnings you flocked to the familiar names. apple, yahoo. we saw it today. the problem i have here is that it's not ten years ago and yah

carol barts, the company's ceo there has stressed for some time that i canyahoo! is not merely competitor, that the company is more than just search. these are the kinds of numbers that will juice more discussion about a deal between yoo yahoo! and microsoft and why some kind of partnership is so important to those companies. >> genemanster with pipe ter afterry joins me to take a look at these numbers. gene, you've seen the numbers. what's your take on the quarter at yahoo!? >> it's a little bit softer especially on the display business down 14% year over year, consistent with what was down last quarter. we were hoping for 11%. that was the key number we were on. we were wishing that would be a little bit better. the guidance in some ways you can throw it out. we have a new cfo, carol barts is perennially conservative and probably keeping a low bar for expectations. it would have been nice to have seen more than just stabilization in their advertising business and discard the guidance. >> would you be putting new money to work in yahoo!? it closed at $16.75 a sha

has new c.o., carol bartes and microsoft and yahoo! start lking about a more limit dealnot a full blown acisition in which microsoft basically take overhe search operations, handle the search operations on yahoo! in exchange for some value. and the deal went throug all sorts of fits and starts and finely arrived at the deal y described a momentgo. all of this being designed to improve microsoft's fairly po position in search right now which street a highlylucrative rket, the online advertising maet that accompanies search. and one that microsoft reall has not had much success in o its own. >> charlie: is this a gd deal for just crosoft or od al for microsoft and yahoo!? >> the shareholds of both companies seem to thk it's a better deal r microsoft than it is for yahoo the stock of microsoft went up a bit yesterday, u a bit today, yahoo! is down. one the problems yahoo! has is th they had st of almost set exptation that they re going to get a b chuck, multi-billion dollar check from microsoft r exchange for a deal. that didn't happen. i

after that, carol bart said it was just but too complicated to explain on the conference call. it doesn't adjust that much but it does go down a bit in terms of the initial percentage of search revenue. there is no up front payment with this deal. that may be one reason why yahoo! stock is down. back about a year ago after the talks for the $33 a share bid for microsoft fell apart, remember, they were pushing a deal where they pay a billion dollars for access to search and 85% of revenues for three years. but there's no billion dollar payment here. perhaps some disappointment on the part of investors. and they are hopeful they can get this deal done by early 2010. there's going to be an anti-trust renew here, no doubt. but in quoting, i believe it was mr. balmer who said, google got 78% of search worldwide. are they really going to put up a fuss? it's hard to imagine that would be the case. let's move on to what yahoo! was saying about value for its own shareholders here that will accrue from a result of this deal. they're saying annual operating income will go up by $500 milli

carol bart advancing that quicker than expected. we do have some if earnings i want it talk tc about, td ame ameritrade was a big up. zions bank corp under pressure today. amazon.com, there are reports they are applying for patents that allow them to sell ads on the kindle. they're up 0.4%. let's see how the bulls are doing downtown. here's sharon epperson at the nymex. >> the bulls are getting a boom from the dollar from a six-week low as well as equities around the globe. the s&p 500 closed at hit highest level since november yesterday. add to that sites around the globe in world equities around the country, around the world. we're looking at oil prices up over $1, above $65 a barrel. when you see the msci world equity index, you'll notice that's the highest level since october, also helping to propel world energy prices higher today. keep in mind though, watch the august and september contracts, we are going to see the expiration of the august contract today, but september also up over $1 at $66 a barrel right now. rick santelli,

carol barts has demonstrated leadership here. yahoo!learly has the products in place in search and messenger and mail and entertainment and sports and a whole bunch of other properties out there that will do well. that's a lot more than you can say about google which is a one-trick pony. google is still trying to compete with microsoft on a bunch of different fronts. and yahoo! is out there trying to partner with microsoft. the approaches in the marketplace is far different. yahoo! might actually represent a better longer term play for investors. but it's going to take a while for this investment to mature. we'll see what happens. it seems like based on what we saw yesterday, might be a little setback. by and large, it seems like yahoo! is on the right track. >> jim, speaking of that track that yahoo! is on, how much more of a sense do you get that yahoo! is going to invest on the technology, the engineering side of the business versus the marketing side of the business? >> well, it seems clear based on what carol bart said yesterday on

nothing new about a deal with microsoft although numbers prove a deal is more necessary than before, carol bart starting to turn numbers around and they need results on the bottom line. >> we've been saying that about yahoo for years, in fact microsoft for years, you said they're light, yahoo is light. why would anybody buy yahoo? i just don't get it. >> you have to remember yahoo is a lot more than search, messenger and mails and sports and entertainment. >> news and information but how do you get paid? >> yes. that's the key. you have to expand that reach, get marketing behind it, get a big war chest. that's what microsoft brings to the party not to mention new search algorithms the two are trying to get together on. i think adale -- it used to be, why would two weak players pose a threat to google, now, they're strengthening and a deal would make sense. i wouldn't be surprised if a deal was announced sooner than later. yahoo seems to need microsoft less than microsoft needs yahoo. >> apple is doing better, great stuff. who's running apple now? >> steve jobs. i got to tell you, larry, even wh

unless as carol barts as said in the past and recently, microsoft has suddenly come up with a "boatload" of money, this is a search partnership. and if these guys can string a deal together, we saw microsoft's online division post about $731 million today in revenue and another horrible loss. microsoft needs to do something with its honline stratege. yahoo can use the marketing and financial muscle that microsoft has. a deal today makes much more sense. >> got it. and, jim, we want to bring our viewers' attention to the headline that we are running. these are all courtesy of the "wall street journal." it is unclear whether the yahoo board actually wants any sort of a deal with microsoft. while, you know, buying yahoo in its entirety may be off the table, we saw yahoo in yesterday's session ride mid-day on the back of reports of some sort of only partnership or some sales of parts of its business. >> i think that's a good reason why you always want to have a little piece of yahoo in your part folio. we hear from carl icahn all the time about them warming up to a deal. so if that's the ca

is this because carol barts has come on board and there were hints that maybe they were talking and finally we get the search deal? >> tried to take over -- tried to take over yahoo! for that $47 billion. one thing that's interesting to note. in terms of advertising, i spoke to the ceo of wpp and he says he's delighted about the deal and thinks it will be great for ad buyers. until now neither were competitors to google and google got the prices. he thinks this will help bring prices down and will be great for advertisers in terms of choice. >> do you think so, ben? >> i think that is true. standing alone they were not competitive threat to google. now together it's still going to be an uphill battle, but they have a fighting chance. >> am i being naive, after all they went through in this country and europe and still feeling the affects of the antitrust suits in europe there, you would thing they would have done the due diligence on this one and before they would ever think about doing a deal with yahoo! here? >> there's no question they have pretty strong arguments to try to get the trans