No Fast Money in Yahoo!

Yahoo!(YHOO) just can't lose.

Or so some investors, analysts and journalists like to believe.

On Monday, the venerable Barron's was the latest to trot out that theme.

Yahoo! is too cheap, the publication argued. And besides, if the stock doesn't recover, the company will be bought out for a handsome premium. Either way, that's easy money for investors.

"Any way you look at it, the stock goes up from here," Larry Haverty of Gabelli Global Multimedia, an investor in Yahoo!, told the publication. "It is very good value."

But that type of glib thinking is misguided. For starters, Yahoo! living up to its own growth targets is more a long shot than a guarantee. That should raise flags about how great a value the stock -- trading at 41 times forward earnings, albeit with cash and other assets factored in -- really is.

And despite the wishful thinking of Yahoo! investors, the company is determined to go it alone instead of selling out.

Investors buying into the idea that Yahoo! is a surefire way to make a quick buck, in other words, are likely to be sorely disappointed.

Take the company's valuation, for starters. "Right now, based on 2009 estimated cash flow, Yahoo! trades at only a slight premium to newspaper companies," Barron's writes. "Even with all the company's troubles, that just doesn't make sense."