The popular Internet service company, Yahoo! Inc. that was vehemently trying to fight off a takeover bid by Microsoft Corp. for last three months, has plummeted in German trading after the latter cancelled the bid following the failure of executives to agree on a price.  After Microsoft retracted its buyout bid, the Citigroup Inc. and ThinkPanmure LLC analysts cut their ratings on Yahoo's stock to ‘sell’. Microsoft had upped its $44.6 billion bid by about $5 billion to $33 per share but says it decided to call it off after Yahoo charged $37 a share.  

 

The challenge now facing Jerry Yang, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo, is to establish that he can perk up sales and the share price by keeping the company independent. A handful of Wall Street analysts, however, had forecasted earlier that Microsoft could withdraw its bid as a negotiating strategy aimed at putting pressure on Yahoo to eventually accept a future offer.