Yahoo!'s China Play Offers No Quick Fix

Wall Street keeps looking for a reason to get behind Yahoo!YHOO, but it can be hard to stay there for long.

Shares of the Internet giant slipped 3% Tuesday to $30.83, following a sharp selloff of more than 7% Monday.

But this week's tumble follows a run-up of roughly 16% the week before. Those gains were driven by investors getting carried away by the potential for Yahoo!'s 39% stake in Chinese Internet commerce company Alibaba.com, which made its debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange this week and will begin trading on Nov. 6.

Still, the recent volatility merely signifies the latest in a series of the silver bullets that Wall Street is looking for when it comes to Yahoo! shares. There have been several similar gains and pullbacks this year because of speculation ahead of the launch of the company's Panama ad-ranking system, rumors that the company would be taken over by Microsoft MSFT, and the mulling over of easy-fix ideas like breaking the company into pieces or outsourcing search to GoogleGOOG to save a quick buck.

This latest whipsaw shows yet again that there are no quick fixes for Yahoo!. CEO Jerry Yang is undertaking a massive overhaul of the company, and should be commended for his bold vision.

But it's still too early to tell whether the company will be able to turn around its flailing business. And, in the meantime, investors should take talks of quick fixes with a grain of salt as the plan unfolds.