Yahoo beat analyst expectations for its first-quarter revenues by $30 million, $1.35 billion to $1.32 billion. Its net income, at $542 million, was considerably higher than Wall Street had hoped for, too. But $401 million of that profit came from a noncash gain, Yahoo's take from Alibaba.com's initial public offering, from which Yahoo profited because it owns 39 percent of Alibaba Group, Alibaba.com's parent company. Investors have taken this caveat into account, bidding Yahoo's stock slightly down in after-hours trading. Commenter WagCurious wants to tar and feather Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen for including these gains in Yahoo's quarterly revenues. But one-time gains like this are a well-understood phenomenon, and there's nothing unusual about Yahoo's treatment of it. If nothing else, Wall Street understands making money from buying and selling pieces of companies.

Alibaba.com, the Chinese Web portal in which Yahoo owns a 40 percent stake, is reportedly prepping for an IPO. And the smell of money draws activists in the same way blood in the water draws sharks. In a revelation ill-timed for Yahoo, which is hoping to realize more value from its stake in Alibaba, a critic accuses Alibaba of being "the New York Stock Exchange of shark fins," according to a story in BusinessWeek. One small problem for Yahoo's shark-fin sharpies, however: the practice, while distasteful to many, is not illegal in China, where Alibaba's based. Still, new Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who played a key role in negotiating Yahoo's investment in Alibaba, is surely eager to see an Alibaba IPO go off without a hitch. That alone may prompt him to pressure Alibaba to cave into activists' demands and stop the trade.