Oil Climbs, Yahoo Slides

As expected, Yahoo’s [[yhoo]] shares dropped significantly in the pre-market session and opening at $23.02 per share, or a $5.65 drop from Friday’s closing price of $28.67 after Microsoft [[msft]] announced it was withdrawing its bid for Yahoo. Throughout the day the stock has inched slightly higher as some investors are holding out, hoping for Microsoft to try to acquire the internet search company again, either by pressuring shareholder action, or through a hostile takeover as soon as the stock drops enough.

On the commodities side, oil moved above $120 again on concerns of increasing demand and instability in Nigeria and Iraq. Light, sweet crude reached a new high of $120.21. In contrast, gasoline futures managed to inch down slightly, something that will further eat into refineries profit margins as they have to pay more for crude oil and yet cannot sell gasoline for that much more. Big oil companies are probably hoping for that tax cut from McCain and Clinton, so that they can keep charging the prices they are charging and pocket the tax cut to make up for their squeezed profits. As we’ve said before though, this most likely won’t benefit consumers all that much.

Warren Buffett, in an interview with CNBC, said that he thinks the Fed has lowered interest rates enough and should probably stop, and that the stimulus package will probably not help the economy all that much and that it will bring further inflationary pressures. He advised consumers to use the stimulus package to pay off credit card debt rather than spend it all, even though this might not be what government economists are hoping for, as that would help many out of the huge debts they have got themselves into.

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