News of Yahoo Inc's plans to retain a larger stake than what it had originally announced was welcomed by the company's investors. Yahoo's value rose by almost 1% to USD 33.70 in afterhours trading after the firm said it would only be offering fewer shares than what was originally agreed in Alibaba's IPO. Yahoo has a 24% stake in the Chinese e-commerce firm.

Macquarie Research Analyst Ben Schachter said the move would allow Yahoo to gain more in the event that Alibaba's stock would rise after it goes public. He said, "The idea is you don't want to have to sell at the IPO price, you want to sell later to potentially get the appreciation going up."

Meanwhile, for the third quarter, Yahoo's main business of search advertising and selling online display ads still continued to struggle amidst tough competition from Google and Facebook. Search advertising revenues only increased 3% year-over-year, while the number of display ads sold only went up by 1%.