The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. Yahoo! Spells Relief Y-A-N-G

Yahoo! (YHOO Quote) found a cure for its leadership ills.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., search giant said Monday afternoon that Terry Semel resigned after six years as CEO, and named co-founder Jerry Yang CEO and former finance chief Sue Decker president.

Semel, who will stay on as nonexecutive chairman, said on Monday's conference call that the need for a change dawned on him gradually.

"As we continued to discuss it, at the board, I personally found that I was thinking much shorter term," Semel said. "I started to express that very openly to the board, and saw myself more as a -- kind of a coach [rather than] a player going forward."

What a coach Semel will make. Critics have been calling for his head for more than a year as Yahoo! has continually lost ground to Google (GOOG Quote). Investor unrest flared up last week at the annual shareholder meeting, where a third of voters withheld support for management's board slate.

The vote was far from the only sign of frustration. Dissident shareholder Eric Jackson wondered aloud why Yahoo! didn't apologize for its poor performance. Shares have dropped 29% since the end of 2005, as Yahoo! repeatedly missed financial targets and stumbled on big technology projects.

Semel blandly promised business would get better, but that didn't mollify Jackson. He challenged Semel at the meeting, asking whether he had enough "fire in the belly." Semel shot back, "Absolutely."

The mess from Semel's tenure at Yahoo! has left everyone with a serious case of heartburn.

Dumb-o-Meter score: 95. Maybe the resignation will make Semel feel better.

To watch Greg Greenberg's video take of this column, click here.