Image Source – Mashable

Yahoo (YHOO) is one of the best known companies in the tech space and one of the oldest. It used to be a major power player but like AOL (AOL) has suffered in recent years to keep up with giants like Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB).

Yahoo is unique because they have a large holding in Alibaba (BABA) and in Yahoo Japan. While many people question their value and their future, let’s not forget that they are a billion dollar company with an experienced Google executive at its helm. Sure CEO Marissa Mayer has had her fair share of media gaffes, like the time she said raising a baby was easy (yea, right) but in the world of business and Yahoo she seems to be making slow and yet steady strides to grow the company.

Even though Yahoo has experienced some bottom stock prices over the last ten years, more and more analysts are moving it to a “buy” versus a “hold.” This is perhaps unexpected to those who haven’t been paying attention to Yahoo, but to those who have, this is just another example of an upswing that Yahoo has been on the past few months. In fact, the stock is up 125% since 2013.

If you’re wondering how or why Yahoo has done so well in the last few months, it’s actually a combination of several factors. First, much of this growth is due to CEO Marissa Mayer’s commitment to ensuring the company is taking advantage of advertising to mobile users. Much like Facebook, Yahoo has realized that a large portion of their users are using their mobile devices to access it, and so they’re working on developing long term advertising revenue streams that will continuously provide income for the company.

Yahoo has also been on an acquisition spree, including buying Tumblr in May 2013. Again, many people thought that Yahoo paid too high of a price for Tumblr at 1.1 billion, but in many ways they will see a return on their investment rather quickly given the large user base that Tumblr currently has.

To make things more interesting, Yahoo owns 15.4% of Alibaba, a partnership whose roots go back ten years. In fact, many people bought Yahoo stock knowing this and assuming that if they owned Yahoo, they would have access to Alibaba stock. Now, since Alibaba has gone public, this isn’t necessary anymore, so many are re-evaluating Yahoo and wondering if they have a future strong enough to battle competitors like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. Some people are even saying that we’ll hear more about possible mergers or takeovers of Yahoo once the Alibaba spin off is over.

So, I don’t know about you, but I’m keeping my eye on Yahoo. Mayer seems to be up to some interesting things over there in terms of trying to grow the company and pull it out of a slump. Given how many investors have bought Yahoo stock just this week, I don’t think I’m the only one to think so or to be paying attention.

Do you think Yahoo stock is on the rise?