Yahoo's stock gets Mayer bounce while the market falls

This is an unusual twist. While investors are selling off stocks across the board -- the tech-heavy Nasdaq index was down more than 1 percent in midday trading -- Yahoo is up 5.5 percent at $16.60.

The catalyst: Yahoo's better-than-expected quarterly earnings, which it reported after the market closed yesterday, and a solid performance by Marissa Mayer, who oversaw her first conference call with Wall Street analysts since taking the top job in July.

Yahoo topped estimates on the profit and revenue front, providing hope that the core ad business has promise. This, along with Mayer's talk about a bigger role for search (remember, she came from a long career at Google) and a commitment to mobile, was enough to cheer Wall Street.

As Bernstein Research analyst Carlos Kirjner wrote in a report, "It's alive!"

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