Shares of Yahoo! (YHOO) today closed up 37 cents, or 1%, at $37.60, in a down market, perhaps reflecting at least in part headlines yesterday and today about a potential listing in the U.S. of shares of Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba Group Holding, in which Yahoo! owns a 24% stake... We see Yahoo! netting $9.3B in after-tax proceeds from the initial share sale at the IPO based on a $150B valuation for Alibaba. Subsequently, we see Yahoo!’s remaining after-tax stake valued at near $20B. We believe Yahoo! uses the proceeds for share repurchases. There is potentially further valuation upside tied to the performance of Yahoo Japan (4689JP).

Yahoo!: $150B Alibaba Valuation Could Be Big Payoff in US IPO, Says Topeka - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com

That was March, Yahoo has done well since then, this is now:

As Wall Street excitedly awaits the near-$24 billion Alibaba Group initial public offering next week, traders have been bidding up shares in two big tech companies with hefty stakes in the Chinese e-commerce megalith: Yahoo Finance parent Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), which owns 22%, and Japan’s SoftBank (SFTBY) conglomerate, which holds 34%.

Buying Yahoo to play Alibaba? History hints at future moves - Yahoo Finance

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Yahoo, Softbank

Is it too late to get into this one?

A look at how the “proxy stock” behaved before and after an IPO or spinoff in the coveted company shows a broad pattern of initial decline, then eventual recovery as a fresh set of investors begin evaluating the parent or proxy company on its own terms and fundamentals.

Buying Yahoo to play Alibaba? History hints at future moves - Yahoo Finance