Yahoo last night posted steady profits and higher revenues on strong advertising sales, and moderately raised its revenue target for the rest of 2005.
Third-quarter net income of $254 million, or 17 cents per diluted share, compared with a year-ago profit of $253 million, or 17 cents a share.
However, the year-ago results included a gain of 9 cents per share from the sale of a stake in rival Google acquired by Yahoo when the rival search firm was a start-up.
Excluding $27 million in investment gains, Yahoo's latest quarterly profit amounted to 15 cents a share.
Yahoo estimated fourth-quarter net revenue of $1.03 billion to $1.08 billion. That is within the band of the $1.0 billion to $1.14 billion that Wall Street analysts were expecting for the fourth quarter.
"We feel like we will see a continuation of the trends of very strong and very balanced growth," Yahoo chief financial officer said in a phone interview after the report.
"It looks solid," agreed Troy Mastin, an analyst at William Blair & Co., adding that Yahoo's results were a "positive indicator" for the overall online advertising industry and in particular Google, which reports results tomorrow.
Ahead of the report, Yahoo shares closed down 46 cents at $33.70 in regular trading. Following the results, the shares edged up 5 cents in after-hours trade to $33.75.